Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
A tight clench of his jaw is his only response.
“That’s why you came here, didn’t you? That’s what you were looking for. To forget. To move on. That’s why you’re always with all these girls. I saw it. I see it. I read the articles. You’re with a different girl every night ever since…”
When Lively said it was all over the news, what happened at that parking lot six months ago, she was right. In fact, it’s still in the news. Not just the incident, but what he’s doing to get over it. They say his focus isn’t on the game anymore. That he’s partying a lot, almost every night. They say if he was a playboy before, who went through girls like water, he’s even worse now. These days his relationships, or rather his one-night stands, don’t even last through the night. Some nights he changes girls by the hour. And while it all seems like great fodder for gossip, what it really is is painful. It's so fucking painful that this is what he’s doing to move on. This is how he’s dealing with what happened.
Especially after everything he’s done.
“I know,” I go on, taking a deep breath. “I know what you did.”
His face is hard but blank, no sign of life, let alone a single expression in sight. But I don’t get deterred. I’ve already started down this path and I’m going to keep at it. I clutch the tray to my chest, not as a shield this time but as something to hold on to. I press my spine into the pillar as well, not to get away from him but for support because my legs are about to give out.
So his engagement with his girlfriend Isadora? It was a sham. He only proposed to her—in front of everyone no less, in front of his twin brother—so she could get the man she really loved, his twin brother. Because while he was in love with her, she was in love with Stellan the whole time. And when he found out about it, he decided to help Isadora get Stellan.
“For her,” I say, my voice trembling. “I know it was all a sham. You getting down on one knee. You proposing in front of everyone. You did it for her. You did it so… she could get what she wanted all along. Your twin brother.”
Isn’t it the craziest thing in the whole world? Proposing to a girl you love just so she could get the man she loves. Faking the engagement with her just to make sure she gets her heart’s desire while totally disregarding yours. But that’s exactly what he did, and he kept up the charade for months. For months, he pretended. He kept the truth to himself, never shared it with anyone. Never let it show there was something going on.
Not until that night six months ago, when everything came to a head and I found out the truth. When I had to watch him get all beaten up and bloody.
Before I can think about it, I reach up with my hand and cup his jaw. It’s hard and rough with his perpetual stubble, and I don’t think my fingers have ever encountered anything more wonderful. I rub my thumb over his scrape-y jawline, hoping to cut myself on his razor-sharp stubble. “You didn’t deserve that. Not after everything you’d been through, everything you’d done for her.”
“Yeah, you know a lot about what I deserve, don’t you,” he says, his voice low, almost threatening.
I wince slightly and take my hand off his cheek, wrapping it around my tray once again. “I just know that you’re in pain, and getting a lap dance from a stripper isn’t going to help with that.”
“And what do you think is going to help?”
“I don’t know, talking about it?” I say.
He watches me a beat. Then, “What helped you?”
“What?”
“With your pain,” he explains. “Over me.”
“I—”
“Ah, my bad,” he cuts me off, his eyes flashing hard and his lips twisting in a sneer. “You’re still not over me, are you. You weren’t when you got so broken up over my fake engagement that you had to leave the room to go catch your breath outside. And you’re still not over me now, when you saw a stripper dancing on my lap and spilled your drink on me in a pathetic attempt to catch my attention. So I don’t think I should be taking advice from a desperate schoolgirl with a bad crush, like you.”
I want to smack him again. And then I want to punch him in his smirking face. But I won’t. I don’t want him to know how much he affects me. He already knows more than he needs to about how attuned I am to him.
So I steel my spine and say, “If you think turning into a raging asshole is going to make me regret being kind to you, then you’re wrong. I’m not going to apologize for being a decent human being. In fact, I’ll go ahead and tell you that maybe you should try it sometime. And just to remind you, I’m not a schoolgirl anymore. I already graduated. With your sister, who happens to be my best friend, remember?”