Page 76 of Obsessed with the Heartbreaker

My stomach turned to knots.

I’d told him that Henry was already thinking about his future, which was a good thing, but I’d kept the rest to myself.

As if they knew what I was thinking, Eliot said, “I don’t think he’s really going to hate you, Ant. You’re not even trying to persuade him into doing what his father wants. You’re trying toguidehim into doing what he himself wants. And we all know this Connell favor was just an excuse.”

Truthfully, I felt like shit for lying to Henry. Or at leastomitting the truth, but I was also starting to think—or rather,hope—that he wouldn’t hate me either. Henry being Henry, he had to have known that there had been a reason for me to approach him in the first place. It was relieving—but I was also convinced that if I told him, he wouldn’t want to talk about his career again. He’d try to shut down and be stubborn and unhappy just because he thought he’d be getting back at his parents.

But I couldn’t have that.

At least, even if our not-relationship didn’t last, I’d have helped him.

And that should be enough.

Chapter 23

Henry

“So he’s not a monster,” Maddox said suddenly, almost making me jump out of my own skin in our cozy frat kitchen.

Trying to settle my racing heart, I turned to look at him. The Hellhound was leaning back on the counter, arms crossed and pensive expression on, his icy blue eyes trying to decipher me like a mathematical problem. Sunlight spilled in through the window and onto his inky black hair, and it was just way too fucking early to be getting started with interrogations.

But here we were.

“Who are we talking about?”

Mad gave me a long look, one that said ‘Don’t even bother’.

There was one only person he could have been talking about.

“He isn’t.”

My stomach twisted into knots as I myself had to face the truth once and for all: I’d never hated Antony. He had never been the monster in my story, even if Maddox had wanted to think it, but I still had to say that the sheer force of the feelings assaulting me once I admitted it to myself was nothing short of terrifying.

I took a sip of my steaming coffee mug, hoping it would soothe some of the turmoil.

It didn’t.

“So why didn’t you just fucking tell me?”

“It’s complicated.”

“As complicated as the fact that you’re going at it like rabbits at any chance you get?”

Now it was me who gavehima hard look. The hand holding my coffee threatened to shatter the ceramic into a million pieces.

But Mad being Mad, he wasn’t deterred. He pushed away from the counter. “Is that what this had been about the whole time? You wanted him?”

My heart was beginning to race again. “I said it’scomplicated.” I rounded the kitchen table, trying to get some space from the intensity of his questions, but when I reached the door that lead to the yard, Maddox was on me and blocking the way.

“You’ve beenpiningfor him.”

“I havenot.”

“Youhave,and that’s exactly why you would never tell me the reason you seemed to hate him so much to begin with. You were so stingy with the details, and it was all because you were carrying this crush—”

“I just kissed himonce, okay? I wasn’t pining.”

There, I’d said it.

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