The System Made My Rival Fall in Love With Me

What are you supposed to do when you're forced into a billionaire romance script with your sworn nemesis? On live television, my bitter rival wraps his arm around me, calling me his sweet little wifey with every breath, and even throws down threats at my former first love. Buried against his chest, I looked dead inside. Under my ex’s completely shell-shocked gaze, the two of us were catapulted to the top of the trending topics. Yet nobody bought that we were genuinely a couple. I mean, come on, does really no one believe pure love can bloom between sworn enemies? Jaxon and I were notorious industry rivals. He’d comment on my selfies claiming I warped the doorframe with Photoshop, and I’d comment on his workout videos telling him not to push so hard if his stamina was that weak. "Harper." It wasn't until Jaxon ground out my name through clenched teeth across the table that my mind snapped back to reality. We had been forcefully bound by an overbearing-billionaire-and-his-pampered-wife system. Because of our terrible relationship, the system had linked our minds together. Put simply, we could read each other's thoughts. However, Jaxon and I had unanimously decided to slack off completely and ignore whatever the hell the system wanted. "Will the hosts please call the waiter over to settle the bill," a pair of childish, robotic voices chirped simultaneously in our minds. Jaxon took out his phone and opened PayPal. The system's voice chimed in out of nowhere: "Jaxon, pay the bill using your Centurion Black Card, and say to Harper: 'Little creature, you see this? It's a black card with no limit...'" Jaxon pretended not to hear it, stubbornly continuing to scan the payment code. Suddenly, lightning cracked and thunder roared outside. "If you refuse the quest, you will both be instantly obliterated!" Damn it, how could such sweet, cute voices spit such horrific threats? I saw a muscle twitch in Jaxon's temple. He put his phone away, slammed his hands on the table, and abruptly shot to his feet under the server's utterly bewildered gaze. Moving like a glitching robot, Jaxon pulled a gold-trimmed black card from his pocket and handed it to the server. "Little creature, you see this? It's a black card with no limit." Spurred on by the unrelenting system prompts in his head, he turned toward me, his jaw clenching so hard it looked painful. "As long as you submit to me... all of this... all of this will be yours." God only knows how hilarious his beet-red face and the waiter's dropped jaw were! Schadenfreude comes with a price. The very next second, the sweet female system voice purred out my mission. Screw it. I stood up, caught Jaxon's hand, and threw myself into his arms. "Oh wow, you're so amazing, babe! I love you so much!" The instant the waiter stepped away, I dropped Jaxon's hand like a piece of burning garbage, and Jaxon furiously scrubbed at his palm with a scowl. When we walked out of the café, the sky had already cleared up. "Congratulations to both hosts for completing your first quest! The reward for completing this quest is securing mentor seats on the hit music competition show, The Perfect Pitch." "The massive smash-hit show produced by Hugo Hill?" I was pretty shocked. After all, neither Jaxon nor I were top-tier industry legends yet; we were just established mainstream singers. "Correct! And there will be wonderful rewards every time you finish a quest!" For the first time, that cutesy voice sounded like angelic music. Our phones buzzed at the exact same moment. The frantic, ecstatic voices of our managers proved this wasn't some sick joke. "Might as well take what we can get. Only an idiot turns down free perks. Jaxon, whatever happened between us in the past, let's call a temporary truce for the upcoming gig. Deal?" I extended a hand toward him. Jaxon looked a bit awkward, but he reached out and shook it. "Deal.""Your new single? Why is it always so sickeningly sweet?" I was in the studio wearing headphones and tracking vocals when a deep male voice inside my head made me jump out of my skin. This damn telepathy again. I snapped back in my head, thoroughly annoyed. "You dare call my songs sweet? Look at your own tracks, they sound like a funeral march. Think you could pull off your edgy vibe with my lyrics?" "Bet," Jaxon hummed casually in my mind. "Stars align, gentle breeze, our romance will never rust in peace." The deep, resonant voice in my head carried a different melody, a completely different texture, but it was breathtakingly good. "Damn, that actually sounds amazing..." I caught myself sighing aloud. "Obviously," Jaxon replied with an involuntary chuckle, which practically scared his manager, Peter, half to death across town. His artist randomly humming and bursting into a soft smile out of nowhere? What kind of glitch was this?! "Jaxon, are you losing your mind because you have to work with Harper?" Peter eyed him with genuine concern. "I know you two hate each other, but this is a massive platform. Can you just grin and bear it?" Jaxon gave Peter a flat, unamused look. "Stop overthinking it. It's just a shoot. I'm fine." "Then... once the contract is officially inked, we need to do some promo to generate buzz. Want me to draft the social posts for you?" Peter pulled up his phone to reply to the producers while brainstorming copy. "No need. I'll... do it myself." Hearing the little boy system voice prompting him in his head, Jaxon let out a quiet sigh and looked down at his phone. "Jaxon, did you know you and Harper are trending everywhere right now?!" Backstage at The Perfect Pitch, I was adjusting my in-ear monitor when I spotted the veteran Pop King shoving his phone right into Jaxon's face. "I have officially joined the show with my woman. No voice on this earth sounds sweeter than hers. @HarperLovesJaxonEveryday." "Aww, I adore you too, sweet cheeks. @HarperIsJaxonsWoman." Yep. After forcing us to spit out stomach-churning dialogue, the system made us change our Instagram handles. Unlike other celebrity couples, fans immediately assumed we had escalated our cold war from direct bashing to aggressive public trolling. Consequently, our fan clubs rebranded themselves respectively to "Jaxon Is A God" and "Harper Is A Princess." Nobody—literally nobody—shipped us. I guess that's the perk of being lifelong rivals. "See what I mean? The public has 20/20 vision. Who in their right mind would ship a stud like me with you?" Jaxon's voice rang out inside my head without warning. "Please. Shacking up with you would be like a princess adopting a toad. No sane person would ever put us together." Mid-conversation with the Pop King, Jaxon abruptly turned to glare at me, flashing a tight, furious grin. "Little darling, come over here. If I can't hold your soft, sweet self in my arms, I might just lose my mind." While cursing him out in my head, I threw myself onto Jaxon with open arms. "Coming, sweetie! I missed you so, so much!" The Pop King beside us stood frozen, his jaw on the floor. "Wait, I didn't mean to..." Ignoring the stunned veteran singer, Jaxon and I powered through our system prompt in one go. To give credit where it's due, Jaxon's critiques of the contestants were impeccably sharp. From the lyricism to the melodies, he sliced straight to the heart of the matter. Sitting right beside him, I piped in with encouraging words every now and then, terrified he'd crush the contestants' spirits entirely. The seat beside the Pop King had remained vacant the whole time, and I had sneakily glanced at it more than once. "For instance, if you tweak this cadence right here... Little creature, why do your eyes keep wandering toward other men?" The third time my gaze drifted to the empty seat, Jaxon rested his hand firmly on top of my head and dragged me toward his side, not forgetting to shoot a warning glare at the innocent Pop King. I swatted his hand away. "Don't mess up my hair... Sorry, sweetie, I was just curious who that empty chair belonged to, I wasn't checking him out!" Trying my best to avoid the Pop King's look of sheer, second-hand-embarrassment despair, I took Jaxon's hand. "The guy who's late is Logan," the Pop King muttered under his breath, sounding like a traumatized NPC delivering a mandatory line. Right on cue, the backstage door swung open.My mind drifted for a second. Logan. My first love, my untouchable memory. Just a few days ago, I saw his stage performance blowing up on the charts. He really was an elite idol. "My apologies, everyone. Got stuck in terrible traffic. Sorry for being late." Logan offered a polished, charming apology to the room. That smile was dangerously disarming, making everyone believe he was some harmless, pure-hearted angel. But behind closed doors... "Well, look at that. You see your old flame, and you're practically drooling on the floor," Jaxon's voice cut through my thoughts. "Give me a break. I stopped caring about that jerk years ago, okay?" I snapped back in my head. "Harper, long time no see." Logan reached out a hand, flashing a soft, familiar smile. I really didn't want to engage with him at all. "The little creature is mine. Not just any random guy gets to touch her." Jaxon abruptly slung an arm around my shoulders and slapped Logan's hand away. "Ooh, you're so fierce, baby," I recited the system's prompt with dead eyes, completely numb inside. "Did I ruin your little reunion with your ex? You've gone completely silent," Jaxon asked smugly after noticing my mind was drawing a blank. "The past is in the past. Whatever, drop it," I mentally sighed, putting on a detached face as I spaced out in my chair. "Logan, go ahead and sit down. Jaxon, what were you saying before? That contestant's knees were shaking so hard he almost dropped his mic." Once Logan took the seat to my left, the Pop King finally let out a long, exhausted breath. After wrapping up the first episode, the entire production crew went out for dinner together. "Harper, about what happened back then..." Logan walked up holding two glasses of wine, offering one to me. "There's nothing to discuss. The past stays in the past. You've got a booming career now, consider my silence an act of charity." Without looking up, I picked at a loose rhinestone on my manicured nail. "Harper... do we really have no chance left?" Logan's eyes rimmed with red. "That guy Jaxon doesn't genuinely love you. There's no affection in the way he looks at you." "And you think there was any in yours?" Annoyed, I accidentally popped off the rhinestone, snatched the glass, and sneered, "Drink this, and never come near me again." Just as I brought the rim to my lips, a distinct, slender hand intercepted it. "Woman, you're not allowed to drink wine from strangers." Jaxon tipped the glass back and drained it in a single gulp, a single stray drop rolling down his sharp jawline and vanishing beneath his collar. "I told you, don't even dream about touching what's mine." Jaxon glared viciously at Logan. "Or I'll make sure your little pop star career ends tonight." He slammed the empty glass back into Logan's hands, grabbed my wrist, and dragged me out toward his car. "Harper, drive me home." The second he uttered those words, his head slumped sideways against the passenger headrest, completely out cold. Nobody warned me this guy was a total lightweight who collapses after a single drink! "System, stop giving him tasks that involve drinking. He can't handle alcohol," I pleaded internally. "Host, we didn't assign any quests just now! Jaxon intervened entirely on his own!" the two childish voices chimed in to defend themselves. Wait... so he came over just to pull me out of that corner? Looking at his peaceful, sleeping face, I leaned across the console to buckle his seatbelt. As my ear brushed his lips, I caught him murmuring, "Stupid Harper..." See? Catching feelings for this idiot was a complete dead end. I rolled my eyes and drove him back to my place instead. I barely managed to haul him onto the bed. Since he ended up like this because of me, I figured I'd take one for the team and crash on the couch. In the middle of the night, a dull thud echoed from the bedroom. I cracked the door open and found Jaxon sprawling on the hardwood floor, his clothes in complete disarray. "Hot... it's so hot..." Jaxon tugged frantically at his shirt, exposing the sharp contours of his chest and abs. I knelt down and touched his skin; he was burning up, and the bulge between his thighs was impossible to ignore. The drink was spiked. In that split second, I mentally cursed Logan into the ground a thousand times over. "Ugh... so loud... burning up..." Jaxon finally yanked his shirt off completely, his hands restlessly roaming over his own heated skin.