His Smokescreen Is Now the Woman He Can’t Have Chapter 03

His Smokescreen Is Now the Woman He Can’t Have Chapter 03

“Did you arrange this?”

When Caleb accused me, I felt… nothing.

I understood immediately. He thought I’d known he was going to give me the cuff link and had set up the bet just to humiliate Isabelle.

“I didn’t.”

The moment the words left my mouth, I knew they were useless.

In his eyes, Isabelle’s version of the truth always won.

I opened my palm and held the cuff link out to him. My tone was flat, a simple statement of fact. “If you don’t believe me, take it back.”

Caleb froze, as if he hadn’t expected that. “What did you say?”

He remembered it clearly. On the anniversary of my father’s death, I had looked up at him with tear-filled eyes and asked, “Anything?” After he’d casually agreed, I had smiled like a child who had just been given the world. “Then I want to trade my most important possession for one of your cuff links,” I’d said.

But now, I was handing it back without a second thought.

Before he could react, I had already frowned. “Is this not enough? Or do I have to go clean the equipment, too?”

Caleb didn’t speak. Instead, one of Isabelle’s followers rushed forward.

She snatched the cuff link from my hand and shrieked, “Who would want anything you’ve touched?”

She raised her arm, about to throw it into the mud pit beside the obstacle course.

“No!”

My expression changed instantly. Not because of the cuff link. Her movement had been so abrupt that she’d also snatched the service medal I was still gripping. She flung them both toward the mud.

Isabelle, Caleb, and their clique soon left, as if dismissing a tedious sideshow.

Without a second thought, I plunged into the knee-deep mud pit. Icy mud instantly soaked my fatigues.

The obstacle course mud pit was filled with sharp stones and debris. Finding something as small as a medal in it would be nearly impossible.

I bent over, my hands blindly searching through the thick sludge.

Time dragged on. After dark, the training field lights flickered on. Sharp stones sliced my legs, the cuts stinging as muddy water and blood mingled on my skin.

I searched until my back ached so badly I could barely stand, until a familiar, mocking voice sounded from above.

“See, Caleb? I told you it was all an act. She pretended not to want it, but she’s been digging around for your cuff link for hours.”

I looked up and saw Caleb, Isabelle, and their little clique watching me from the edge of the pit.

The light was dim. Half of Caleb’s face was lost in shadow.

I didn’t want to deal with them. I just wanted to find the medal. But as soon as I lowered my head, I heard the same female cadet laugh.

“Elara Vance, stop searching. What you’re looking for is right here.”

I lifted my head immediately.

With a smug look, she pulled something from her pocket and opened her palm. Caleb’s cuff link and my father’s medal both lay there, perfectly intact.

Only then did she seem to notice the medal. She frowned in disgust. “What’s this piece of junk?”

With that, she casually tossed both the cuff link and the medal onto the muddy ground in front of me.

My face went pale. I lunged forward, dropping to my knees in the mud to carefully inspect the sludge-covered medal.

The laughter around me grew louder.

“Caleb, look at that. See how much she treasures your things?”

“The Vances really know how to play the victim.”

They walked away laughing, leaving me alone in the mud.

I gripped the medal tightly, its metal edge pressing into my palm. In that moment, I finally understood.

That cadet had never thrown the items into the mud pit.

And Caleb knew it.

But he had simply watched me search in the icy mud all day.

At least the medal wasn’t damaged.

At least I finally didn’t care anymore.

That night, I didn’t return to the dorm. I went to the infirmary, cleaned and bandaged the wounds on my legs, and then sat against the wall in an empty storage room until morning.

Early the next day, the entire West Point cadet forum exploded.

Isabelle had received a special recommendation for an elite NATO strategic research program. Someone had leaked the news, and it quickly drew a flood of questions. Anonymous posts even implied that her academic background wasn’t clean and that she had pulled strings to secure the position.

The rumors spread like wildfire until a single user ID appeared and silenced the entire forum: Caleb Sterling.

[Any false accusations against Cadet Isabelle Davenport will be subject to investigation under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. This ends now.]

He didn’t even need his family’s lawyers. His name and the rules of West Point were enough to crush any dissent.

I looked at the pinned post and felt nothing. I shut down my terminal, changed into civilian clothes, and left West Point.

I had to see someone.

Dr. Peterson, a retired professor from Columbia University. He had been helping me revise my MIT application essays. Now that I was leaving, I had to thank him in person and say goodbye.

The professor was warm and insisted on driving me back. The black sedan stopped at the academy gates. I had just gotten out when I heard a voice I never wanted to hear again.

“Elara?”

I turned. Caleb, Isabelle, and their group were walking over from the other side of the street.

Isabelle’s gaze landed on the car behind me, then on the white-haired, kindly professor inside. The next second, she covered her mouth, her face a mask of exaggerated shock and accusation.

“Elara,” she said sharply, her voice slicing through the quiet afternoon, “I can’t believe… you’d stoop to this for a recommendation letter. You’d betray the honor of the Academy!”