Page 27 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)

I contemplate that—and not the way he rolls a lock of my hair between his finger and thumb. I definitely don’t think about how this ounce of affection (if we can call it that) does things to me. Does things to my heart.

It’s rapidly beating, an uncontrolled gallop.

He tugs my hair, and I meet his gaze.

“I don’t know,” I finally say. “I was on the path away from perfect way before that.”

He grunts. “Because of Amelie.”

The queen bee of Emery-Rose Elite, our high school, was my former friend. She led the charge against me, kicked me off the cheerleading team, and I never understood why. She was mad about something but never actually aired her dirty laundry with me.

Never gave me a chance to refute it, either.

“That was my doing,” he whispers.

I jerk away from him. “You’re lying.”

“I had to concentrate, and I sure as fuck couldn’t do that with your eyes on me every game.”

He leans in, but I don’t shy away from him. My mind spins.

“The game was my ticket to a scholarship, remember?”

Liam’s family was hit with some hard times—it was one of the reasons he even ended up as my neighbor in Stone Ridge. Liam kept a scholarship to Emery-Rose, and Jake went to Stone Ridge High, the public school. No one batted an eye at Liam because of who he was friends with. Caleb, Theo, and Eli would’ve chewed up and spit out anyone who so much as thought about Liam’s lack of money.

I still remember the party his parents had at his house to celebrate his college financial aid package. Ashburn had given him the best investment in his future, but now I’m wondering if part of it was a lie.

Some things aren’t as good as they first appear.

My parents and I went over before everyone else showed up, when Liam and Jake were still setting up the tent in the backyard. Mom shooed me out the door to help them, a box of gold and silver streamers in my arms.

Jake had grinned, going on and on about who Liam was going to meet at Ashburn, how lucky he was to play for a division one team, the school itself, Boston.

Ashburn might be small, but their football team was mighty.

Who knew a tiny college in the heart of Boston could put up such a fight?

But what about me? When he got me kicked me off the team, my whole world fell apart.

I push him away. “You’re an asshole.”

He smirks.

He’s close enough that our noses almost brush. I smother the impulse to kiss him. That would send the wrong message, and what the hell? I’m not attracted to Liam Morrison.

No way.

What happened the other night was a fluke.

“I did what I had to do,” he murmurs. He straightens suddenly. “And I’m doing the same now. If you don’t stay away from Mitchel, he’s going to pay for it. His fate is in your hands.”

I narrow my eyes. “What would you do?”

He gives me a feral smile. “There’s one way to find out.”

My mind will twist this into a million different directions. At the end of the day, though, he’s right: I could call his bluff. Mitch said he could handle Liam, but now I’m not so sure. There’s an ocean of history between Liam and me, and sometimes that sea rages too strongly to ignore.

“You should leave,” I say. “Whitney—”