Page 220 of Twins for Three Bad Boys

He doesn’t look at her when he answers. “What am I supposed to say?”

Her mouth falls open.

He finally turns to her then, eyes cold and hard, as though anger and humiliation are burning through whatever affection he held for her.

“You texted me saying there was an emergency here, that I needed to come down right away because June was causing trouble.” He gestures around us, clearly incredulous. “This is what you meant?”

Tiffany flushes scarlet. “She is causing trouble!”

Max barks a laugh. “Tiffany, you just attacked her in a school hallway.”

“She laughed at me!”

That would be funny if it weren’t so deranged.

Max looks at me again, and this time the shame on his face lands properly, because I can see him finally putting it together.

The rumors. The obsession. The way Tiffany attached herself to every insecurity he ever voiced and turned it into a weapon. The fact he let her do it. Even encouraged it, maybe. Benefited from it, certainly.

He swallows. “I didn’t know she’d gone this far.”

Wayne makes a low sound that is almost a growl.

I stare at Max.

Not because I want to hear him out.

Because I want to know if he’s really going to stand in front of me after all this and try for half innocence.

“You didn’t know?” I say.

He flinches.

“You didn’t know she was sending threats? You didn’t know she was spreading rumors in my workplace? You didn’t know she was still talking about me, still using my name, still trying to ruin things for me?”

Max’s jaw tightens. “I knew she was angry and wanted us to break up. Especially after she found the messages I sent you…”

I laugh bitterly. “That is not an answer.”

He exhales hard, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. “I knew she… said things. Online. To people. But I didn’t know about this.”

Tiffany makes a furious noise. “Don’t you dare throw me under the bus now, Max.”

He rounds on her, finally losing patience. “You threw yourself under the bus!”

The words hit the walls and echo. Tiffany stares at him wide-eyed with shock.

Max points at me, then gestures at our surroundings, then at the scattered mess lying around us on the hall floor.

“I cheated, okay? I was an ass. I know that. But this?” He shakes his head like the scale of it is only just becoming clear to him. “This is insane.”

Tiffany’s face twists. “You said she needed knocking down a peg!”

Max goes pale. “I said a lot of things when I was pissed off.”

“And I listened!” Tiffany screams. “Because someone had to do something! You wouldn’t stop talking about her, you wouldn’t stop comparing me with her, and then she left and you still⁠—”

“Stop,” Max snaps.