Page 135 of The Wrong Play

Callum tilted his head, his smirk lazy, indulgent—like he was already two moves ahead of me in a game I didn’t even want to play. “Yet here you are,” he mused.

I hated him.

I hated how easily he made me doubt myself.

I hated that even now, after everything, after running, after starting over, some part of me still tensed like I was waiting for his approval.

He reached for me, a slow, deliberate movement, and I flinched before I could stop myself, jerking back like his fingers were fire and I’d been burned one too many times.

A flicker of something crossed his face—dark amusement laced with something sharper, something colder. And then he laughed, soft and condescending, his eyes drinking in every inch of my reaction.

“Still so jumpy,” he murmured, lowering his hand, but not before I saw the cruel edge in his gaze. “I’d almost think you were afraid of me.”

The breath in my lungs turned stale, every fiber of my being screaming at me to get out, to put as much distance between us as possible.

“Why are you here?” My voice wavered, my pulse hammering against my ribs.

He leaned in just enough that his scent hit me—cedarwood and leather. The same cologne, the same intoxicating mix of power and poison that used to cling to my sheets, my clothes, my skin.

The past came rushing back so fast it stole my breath.

“You think you can leave me, darling?”His voice echoed in my skull, a ghost of another time, another place. “You think you can run?”

I blinked hard, yanking myself out of the memory, forcing air into my lungs as he hummed, watching me with that samecalculating stare. “I suppose you could say…I missed you.” He exhaled, feigning wistfulness. “I was so distraught after you left, I could hardly function.”

A shudder raked through me, bile rising seemingly higher in my throat.

“That’s not true,” I whispered.

“No?” His smirk deepened. “I did tell you that you’d never get away from me.”

His voice was almost gentle now, like he was soothing a skittish animal. “Tell me, Riley. Did you really think I wouldn’t find you?” His eyes softened just enough to make it worse. “Did you really think some state school and a different city would make you disappear?”

My stomach twisted into knots, the air between us turning suffocating.

He took another slow step forward, his voice dipping into something quieter, something laced with dark amusement. “Imagine my surprise when I turned on ESPN…” He sighed, like he was recounting a fond memory. “And there you were. Headlining.” His eyes darkened, glinting with something possessive. “All over the screen. All overhim.”

The shift was subtle, but I felt it. The barely-there clench of his jaw. The faint edge creeping into his voice as he said, “Thatboy.”

Jace.

My stomach dropped.

Callum didn’t say Jace’s name. He didn’t have to. The disdain, the warning—it was all there.

“Riley,” he murmured, lifting his hand as if to touch me again, trailing his fingers just beneath my chin before I yanked my head away.

His expression didn’t change, but his eyes flashed. A glint of something wicked.

He was enjoying this. Enjoying my fear. “I’m divorcing her.”

My eyes widened in surprise, feeling the pure threat. Because if he did that, he would have even more freedom to come after me. To try and trap me.

Without living his double life with hiswife.

I swallowed hard, my voice shaking. “You don’t belong here.”

He smiled then—the kind of smile that could kill. “I’m not so sure about that.”

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