Page 49 of Heartless Game

My brain was right. The idea of Tovah alone in a room with another man had sent rage through my veins like oxygen, lighting my whole body up with the need to dominate and defend. When Judah texted me to let me know there might be a problem, I ran out of my Italian test so fast I could’ve won a record. Finding Tovah dressed hadn’t helped, not when she’d looked so upset.

And then when Veronica had accused Tovah of slutting it up with her boss, I’d seen red. Not even because I was jealous that it might be true, but because it so clearly wasn’t. She had hurt Tovah, had wanted to hurt her more, and it didn’t matter that I didn’t threaten women as a rule, or that I wasn’t supposed to care about Tovah’s feelings. The only person allowed to fuck with Tovah was me.

So I’d threatened the bitch. Hadn’t physically hurt her; hadn’t had to. My voice and words and the look in my eyes had done the trick.

“Why, Isaac?” Tovah asked again, interrupting my thoughts.

Her breathing was shallow and aggravated, her hair a mess, her eyes so big and brown as she stared up at me in confusion and what might be…

…hope.

“Why do you let people think you fucked your boss?” I asked her instead.

She blanched. “I don’t let people think that…”

“Bullshit,” I scoffed. “The rumor around campus is that you only got the senior sports editor position because you were fucking Toby. Why let it go on for so long?”

She inhaled, her face going pale.

Quietly, so that only I could hear her, she said, “Because no matter how much I denied it, no one would’ve believed me. In fact, the more I denied it, the more people would’ve thought it was true. So why fight it? Why not use it in my favor? People can believe what they want to believe about me, Isaac. Including you. Their opinions of me don’t matter. All that matters ismyopinion of me. And I think I’m pretty fucking fantastic.”

I smiled, my dimples popping out. Usually I did it intentionally, but her words made it happen naturally.

“I like that,” I told her truthfully. “I like that you like yourself. That’s pretty rare.”

She blinked, then smiled back at me.

“Your turn,” she said. “Why come to my defense like that?”

Because the thought of anyone hurting you makes me want to burn down the whole fucking campus, I thought.Because I can’t stand the thought ofanyonemaking you cry.

Instead, I said, “Because no one gets to hurt you but me.”

Her face fell. Seeing her look so sad was like getting hit in the face by a puck. But I couldn’t tell her how I really felt. It would give her power over me, and worse, it would give her the wrong idea of how I felt, or how things could be between us if we stopped hating each other. I wasn’t the protective boyfriend type, even if I was good at pretending to be one. I wasn’t the boyfriend type, period.

Caring for someone like that meant signing their death warrant, and I wouldn’t do that—to anyone.

“Ahem.” Judah swung an arm around my back, and another around Tovah’s.

A snarl rose in my throat the moment his hand touched her back, but I silenced it. I’d been jealous enough.

“So that Toby’s a real douchenozzle, isn’t he?” Judah commented.

Tovah rolled her eyes, lifting Judah’s arm off her body. “He’s been like that since we were freshmen newswriters.”

“Has he been into you since you were freshmen, too?” he asked conversationally.

Tovah rolled her eyes. “Toby doesn’t like me. I don’t think Toby is capable of liking anyone other than Maureen Dowd. He just likes the way us supposedly having slept together makes him seem like less of a prude.”

That snarl came back. Realistically, I knew that Toby wasn’t a threat. But he and Tovah had one major interest in common; what was I other than a dumb jock with a violent family? Not that I gave a shit.

“It doesn’t matter if he likes you,” I said gruffly to Tovah. “He won’t be touching you. Not for the foreseeable future, anyway.”

Tovah rolled her eyes. She clearly thought I was being an idiot. That was fine; so did I.

“Like I’dlethim touch me,” she said.

I addressed Judah. “Was there any talk about her writing an article about the team? Exposing us?”

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