Page 91 of 10 Days to Ruin

“Hm.” His eyes rake over me in a way that makes me feel colder than any Manhattan winter breeze ever could. “Unfortunate. Because mine just came true.”

Heat spreads through me, treacherous and sweet. I swat his hand away from my face. “How many women fall for that line?”

“None. You’re my first. Feeling special yet?”

“Especially annoyed, maybe. But beyond that, it’s just a cold, dead void where my heart should be.”

I roll my eyes and turn my back on him to march up the stairs, leaving Sasha in my rearview mirror, where he can’t see the way my cheeks are burning red.

I step through the front doors and breathe in the sacred scent of old paper and lemon polish, a goofy smile spreading across my face.

God, I love this place. The vaulted ceilings, the golden light leaking through arched windows, the way every whispering footstep against the stone floors sounds like a secret being kept. Mama used to bring me and Jas here sometimes on rainy Sunday afternoons. We’d play for hours, reading and chasing each other up and down the reference aisles where it was quiet and no one minded two little girls being little girls for a while.

I miss those days.

I peek back at Sasha. He’s doing the same thing I am: gazing up at the roof arching overhead, at the stacks of books running endlessly into the distance. He looks like he loves this place every bit as much as I do.

Which is exactly why I have to ruin it for him.

“So!” I spin around, nearly clotheslining a grad student carrying a teetering stack of Proust. “What’s on today’s agenda? You gonna show me the rare books collection? Read me sonnets by candlelight? Ooh, maybe we can play footsie under the?—”

He grabs my elbow, steering me toward a spiral staircase. “You talk too much.”

“Is this a preview of our marriage?” I muse sarcastically, just loud enough for a pair of old ladies shuffling by us to peer over in concern. “You dragging me hither and thither and telling me that women should be seen, not heard?”

“Christ, you’re in rare form today,” he mutters. “I’m trying to do a nice thing.”

Sasha Ozerovandnice things—well, if thatdoesn’t terrify me, nothing ever will. I suppress a head-to-toe shiver and silently repeat the only mantra that’s going to get me through this fraudulent “date.”

Remember to hate him.

I have to keep my eyes on the prize. I have to hate him. I have to chase him away so he doesn’t sink his claws into my heart in a way that I can’t undo.

I need to stick to the plan: be annoying, be unbearable, be unlovable.

Because Sasha Ozerov loving me might be the worst thing he could possibly do.

I yank free of his grasp and pull out my phone. “Hold on, I need to document this travesty for the ‘Gram.”

I snap a shameless selfie with the Murder Death Kill-Bot 3000 lurking in the background, making sure to frame his scowl nicely in the corner of the frame. Caption:When your arranged fiancé takes you to a library like he’s not functionally illiterate.#mobwifelife #sendhelp

“Ariel.”

“Shh, I’m curating my existential crisis.” I angle the camera lower, pouting. “Do I look more ‘damsel in distress’ or ‘future corpse in a true crime podcast’ here? It’s a hard balance to strike.”

But right as I’m about to snap the shot, the phone vanishes from my hand.

“Hey—!”

I turn just in time to see Sasha tuck it into his inner coat pocket. “When you’re with me,” he snarls, “you’rewithme.”

A shiver rolls through me. I cover it with an eye-roll. “Wow, did you get that line from a Nineties rom-com?You’ve Got Mailcalled—it wants its toxic masculinity back.”

He crowds me against a shelf labeled19th-Century Russian Literature. Leather-bound Tolstoy digs into my spine as his breath tickles my ear.

For one terrifying, exhilarating second, I think he’ll kiss me. Here. Now. In front of a wheezing librarian re-shelving books.

Instead, he reaches over my shoulder to pluckAnna Kareninaoff the shelf and hands it to me. “Read.”

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