Page 74 of Vicious Desire (Fallen Royals 4)

“Once you bring murder into it, it doesn’t get much more complicated.” She holds up her hands. “I’m sorry—it’s not a competition. What are you going to do?”

I cover my face. “I don’t know. Part of me wants to get him fired, but I think that’s out the window. He needs the job, and I need to get to State. They’re sort of tied together at this point, and he is helping. As much as I hate to admit it.”

When our group—the faster girls on the team—runs with Eli, I stay toward the back. Off his radar. But he’s a good runner and seems to have impeccable pacing. Even I can grudgingly see it.

I’m in the habit of omitting things, so I don’t say anything else—like how he put up with me on the verge of my freak-out. He even looked like he softened for a minute or two that night. It’s exactly why I put those walls back up.

“Honey?” Mom pushes my door open. “Oh, Margo!”

My best friend hops up and hugs my mom, not even batting an eye at what she’s wearing—her threadbare robe tied tightly around her waist, fuzzy slippers, and her hair messy and loose around her shoulders.

“I didn’t know you were here, Mrs. Appleton,” Margo says as she steps back. “How are you?”

“Oh, you know how things go. Is Noah home?”

I shake my head. “Work until six.”

She nods, and her eyes skitter around the room like she’s seeing it for the first time. Hell, maybe she is. My gut clenches. Did I manage to redo my entire room without her noticing?

“Do you have a game tonight?” she asks me.

I swallow. “There’s one tomorrow.”

“Your father should be home…”

“It’s fine.” I force a smile. “Noah will be there.”

Margo’s eyes are bouncing back and forth like she’s watching a tennis match.

“I’ll try to make it,” she says. She knocks on the door—trying not to jinx it, maybe—and backs out of my room.

“Whoa,” Margo whispers. “Riley.”

I smooth the comforter. “She’s fine. We’re fine.”

“What team does she think you’re on, exactly?”

She won’t drop it. She’s stubborn like that.

I can’t meet her gaze when I say, “I was a cheerleader my sophomore year, and I think she forgot how that ended.”

She settles on my chair. “You never really said what happened.”

“A party gone wrong,” I mutter. “I thought it was Eli’s fault, so I iced him out. It was nicely timed… and then of course he rekindled things the following year.”

Understanding dawns on her face. “You two were a thing before he even kissed you at the mall.”

I nod sharply. “Yep. We pretended to be enemies… it was stupid. I’m the only one who ended up getting hurt.”

She scoffs. “I think he’s hurting plenty.”

“Because of what I did to him,” I respond. “But before that? I didn’t do anything wrong. He’s the one who was secretly messing with me the entire time.”

Her jaw drops. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah.” I kept it a secret because I was ashamed of myself. And… I had lied to Margo. Eli wasn’t a big, bad bully who forced his way past my guard. He already resided there. “I, um, knew that people wouldn’t take it well. When we actually started dating. We did it for the rush, because otherwise…”

I would probably look something like my mother at this point.

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