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“Are you serious?”
“The guy threatened me with a gun,” I remind him. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have been in that car in the first place.”
“Which means that whoever tried to kill you would have picked a time when you were alone. Without Vaughn, you might not still be alive. You can’t blame him for the crash.”
“I can blame him for anything I want. Did he ever tell you that my sister was infatuated with him? He strung her along for months as his side chick.”
“I know there’s more to that story. There has to be. I’m asking you to give me a chance to figure out exactly what is going, for all our sakes.”
Hurt wars with the anger as I stare him down. This cramped room isn’t big enough to get as far away from him as I suddenly want to be. I should have known that Drake would always take the side of his brothers in Havoc House over doing the right thing. Hasn’t he already proven that a dozen times already?
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me two dozen times and shame on the dumb lovesick bitch who thinks with her heart and not her brain.
I guess Olivia and I have more in common with each other than I thought.
“Are we going to talk about what happened?” My voice is full of challenge as I take a step forward, closing the distance between us. “About the video?”
Drake looks away, glaring at the empty air over my head. “It wasn’t actually you, was it? What is there to talk about?”
“But you thought it was me when you decided to play it in public. That was low, even for you.”
“The video wasn’t my idea,” he snaps, looking more offended than he has any right to be. “Cole and Nolan got hold of it without even telling me. They planned the whole thing. I was just going to stage a public breakup.”
The air-conditioning unit kicks on with a rattling whir, the only sound in the room as we stare each other down. I’m in this shitty motel room, in a town that I wouldn’t spend more than a day in if I could avoid it, and on the run from mysterious strangers who seem very interested in seeing me dead.
All because I made the mistake of trusting Drake to be something more than the monster who hurt my sister.
“Maybe you couldn’t have stopped it from happening, but you didn’t seem all that torn up when it happened. You took full advantage of the situation to finally chase away Olivia Pratt.” I’m suddenly so angry that I’m about to cry, and that’s the last thing that I want him to see me do. “You thought it was me in that video and you didn’t say a word. You’re no better than any of the other Havoc Boys.”
“That video never would have come out if you’d left St. Bart’s when you had the chance. You had fair warning.” His lips thin. Something flashes in his eyes that almost looks like remorse, but it doesn’t match the angry tone of his voice. “I’m not asking for your forgiveness.”
“Good, because I’m not offering it.” My shoulders sag as I glare at him, heart-aching and exhausted. “Just go do whatever it is you think you need to do. Get out of here. I want to be alone.”
Drake hesitates for the smallest fraction of a second before turning on his heel. The door slams loudly enough behind him that the air-conditioner rattles in the window frame, making a spluttering noise before it starts back up again.
I collapse onto the bed and the frame sags under my weight with a loud creak. My hands ball into fists in my lap and I stare down at them. Traces of blood are still under my fingernails. Vaughn’s forehead was cut by the window glass. The blood has to be his. I’m still wearing the clothes that I had on when we crashed because I didn’t want to leave the hospital in a gown and had nothing else to wear.
What am I still doing here?
The motel room door slams open again, hard enough that it bangs against the opposite wall.
Drake strides into the room, barely stopping to shut the door behind him. Suddenly, he is only inches away and fully invading my personal space as I stand.
We both freeze.
His lips are close enough that I feel the rush of air as he exhales. The desire that I had just convinced myself could be controlled and eliminated crashes into me like a lightning bolt.
I hate how easily he can turn me against myself.
If I don’t stop this now, there won’t be any stopping it later.
That’s when I bite him hard enough to draw blood.
“Fuck.” Drake backs away and presses the back of his hand to his mouth. “I guess I deserved that.”
“Some might say you deserve that and more,” I gasp, trying to slow down my breathing. “We’re not doing this, remember?”
