His Kind of Beautiful
A romance between ruin and radiance.



When Meilin Chen steps through the gates of Ellesmere University, all she wants is a fresh start. With a scholarship in her pocket and stars in her eyes, the Chinese scholarship student finds herself surrounded by wealth, legacy, and whispers of power. London is colder than she expected, and the campus—ancient and elite—is almost too grand to belong to her.

Until she walks straight into someone who doesn’t belong either.

Theodore “Theo” Ashford is inked, pierced, and wrong in all the right ways. He’s royalty—literally—with an empire in his last name and a cigarette always between his fingers. Arrogant, untouchable, and devastatingly beautiful, Theo is everything Meilin never imagined she'd fall for.

But fall, she does.

And Theo? He wasn’t supposed to notice the bubbly girl with big eyes and bigger dreams. But the more he pushes, the more she stays. And the more she stays, the more cracks begin to show in his perfectly reckless world.

Because Meilin isn’t just beautiful.
She’s his kind of beautiful.
And for the boy who swore he couldn’t feel—
She might be the one thing he can’t let go.

I barely survived my first fifteen minutes at Ellesmere before I called Ava.


I was still standing under a stone archway, trying to find my dorm, but my fingers were already dialing before I even realized it. The cold London air whipped through my coat, and I clutched my phone like it could protect me from the trauma of… him.


"Meimei?" Ava answered on the second ring. "You okay? Did you land in Hogwarts yet?"


"Oh my god, Ava," I hissed. "You will not believe what just happened to me. I bumped into a walking, talking, breathing red flag."


"Mr. Tattoos and Ego. That's what I'm calling him," I whisper-shrieked. "He smells like cigarettes and arrogance. Has piercings everywhere—I swear even his lips had metal—and tattoos crawling up his neck like he's trying to cosplay a mafia boss."


I gasped. "Excuse you, my type is clean, polite, and doesn't glare at me like I'm a stray cat."


Then groaned. "Unfortunately. In a tall, broody, ruined-by-money kind of way. Like if a bad decision were six-foot-three and had cheekbones sharp enough to slice paper."


"I am not!" I protest. "I didn't even get his name. Just… attitude. And blue eyes. And smoke."


Ava snorted so hard I could hear it through the phone. "You sure you didn't imagine the piercings? Maybe your poor sheltered scholarship brain short-circuited."


"I didn't imagine the way he looked at me like I was a mosquito in Chanel."


"Oh no, that means he's British and emotionally unavailable. Mei, babe, you struck gold."


"Please," I muttered, adjusting my backpack. "If that man is gold, I'm allergic to it."


Ava sighed dramatically. "Fine. But I want updates. Every time you see Mr. Tattoos and Ego, you report back. Full details. And if you fall in love—"


"—I get naming rights for your future babies."


"No, wait! Send me a picture of the campus! And of him if you see him again. Preferably shirtless."


I stared at my phone for a second, shaking my head, before stuffing it in my coat pocket and turning toward the dorm building.


No more surprises today, I told myself.


Spoiler alert: the universe did not listen.


Chapter 2 - Mr. Tattoos and Ego