Page 89 of Beautiful Defiance

“Henry helped her get the grades. Did her assignments.”

“She used him.”

“Yes.”

“She misled him, using his feelings for her.”

“He wasn’t innocent in all this, Leigh. He understood what she was, a user, a manipulator.”

“But he stuck around hoping to change her, and she didn’t change. Instead, she went for the next best thing and broke his heart. Is that why you keep saying I’m yours? You want to change me, get me to fall in line, to bow to the king of the game? Show me you care when you don’t? Mislead me?”

Fuck, she’s onto me, and I’m a bastard. I open my mouth to tell her, but what she does next has me shutting the fuck up.

“I couldn’t give a care anymore for your reasons, Seven. You’re right. I want to just be and enjoy what I have in the here and now. I am yours, Seven Shanahan. I. Am. All. Yours.”

Her words shred my heart.

She is mine.

I’ll never be hers.

The almighty ruler of Cambridge High bows down to no one, not even a five-foot-five girl with attitude and a big heart.

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