Page 51 of The Girlfriend Agreement (Conwick U #1)

I shake my head. “That’s the problem,” I say, forcing a needed wall up between us. “You think ‘trying’ means everything gets excused with an easy smile or wit because you have your name and your family’s money to back it up. But it doesn’t.”

The light in his eyes instantly dims, taking any hint of an apology with it. “Because my problems are insignificant, right? Nothing at all compared to real problems.” His tone is lethal and razor sharp, like a knife angled at my heart.

I step an inch closer, unafraid of getting cut. “Am I wrong?”

A tight, sarcastic smirk pulls at the corners of his lips. “Nope, that’s me: privileged asshole who never has to face the consequences of my actions. Oh, wait…” His eyes blacken with derision. “Well, you got it half right, at least.”

“Yeah,” I retort, “the asshole part. Are we done here?”

He smiles again, though this time, the curve to his mouth is serpentine. Like pieces on a chess board, he mimics my movement, stepping closer, his long legs eating the distance between us. “I don’t know. You tell me. Are we done?”

Part of me wants to be. It’s been nearly two months of this, and I am beyond exhausted; I have no clue how I’ll last until the deadline, or if there’s even any point in keeping this charade going any longer.

Maybe I should just swallow my pride and ask Ronnie for the money I need for my mom.

It would certainly be easier than dealing with this.

“We could be,” I answer. “Our impending ‘break-up’ is already plastered all over the internet according to Ronnie and Andie.”

Thankfully, the video that aired of our fight at Fernando’s didn’t manage to pick up what we were saying, so it just looks like any other lover’s spat, leaving the internet with nothing better to do than to theorize what we argued about.

We could use that to our advantage, avoid any further scandal and take the easy out it offers us, ending things here and now.

Or we can keep up this sham of an arrangement that I had fooled myself into thinking was actually working when in reality… who the hell knows what it was.

Damian shakes his head. “It’s nothing that can’t be walked back.”

“With another lie?” I ask.

He exhales a strained laugh. “This whole thing between us is a lie, Dornan. It always has been. I don’t know why you’re suddenly so bent out of shape over that.”

He’s right. This entire situation is a lie, and I have willingly participated in this facade fully knowing that.

But things changed when he made that post because that lie now extends into unwelcome territory.

Into viewpoints I don’t want to lie about…

and into words I don’t want to hear someone say to me, about me, unless they wholeheartedly mean them.

And the fact that Damian can’t seem to see that is exactly why this won’t work out.

He must see the unspoken decision on my face because he grabs me by the wrist when I try to walk away again. “Wait. Stop. I take it back. I do know why you’re mad.”

Bullshit. I tug at his grip on my arm, attempting to wrench my hand free.

“Stop,” he breathes. “Please?”

I stiffen at that whispered request—at the raw desperation I sense behind that one word. There’s no way he’s faking that, not unless he’s a way better actor than I gave him credit for.

Drawing in a breath, I turn to meet his gaze once more. “Okay, enlighten me. Why am I mad?”

He swallows, and the sound is audible in the hushed emptiness of the stacks. “Because I forced a narrative you didn’t agree to. A narrative I had no right to force. It’s not my place to say whether or not you forgive me. Or if you should.”

His words and tone are alarmingly earnest, so much so I have difficulty discerning if he actually means it or if this is just another calculated lie. The lines between the two are becoming too blurry for me to see clearly.

That exhaustion I’ve felt far too frequently throughout the last month creeps in again, and I press my back to the bookcase behind me, rubbing a hand over my face.

“I just don’t know, Damian. This is all starting to feel…

messy. I mean, is there even any point in continuing this?

” I move a hand back and forth in the narrow space between our chests.

“Is there a chance, however small, that your parents actually care whether you have a girlfriend or not? Is it even making a difference?”

His gaze bores into mine. “Maybe. More than likely not. But if we quit now, I won’t ever know.”

I see it then: the fear in his eyes. An achingly familiar terror I know all too well, having felt it every single day for the last year and a half myself.

For the first time, I wonder if there’s more to his situation than he’s previously said.

If his problems aren’t quite as small as I berated him for.

“Besides,” he continues before I can wrap my head around that thought, “it’s helping you, isn’t it? That’s worth something at least.”

My chest seizes at the sincerity in his tone and at the unabashed plea in his gaze. He might not have meant the apology he posted online, but he means this. No one is that good at lying.

A nervous feeling flutters in the bottom-most depths of my stomach. Would it be wrong of me to accept? Do I even want to?

Think of Mom. Do it for Mom, I remind myself, and that thought is all it takes to sway me.

“If I say yes,” I begin, my tone tentative as I push away from the bookcase, “there will be no more spontaneous declarations of ‘love’ of any kind, got it?” I hold up a finger in Damian’s face.

“And you won’t ever speak for me again regarding my opinion about anything , especially the bucket list. And don’t for one second think I forgive you for it either, despite what the world might believe. ”

Damian gives me a curt nod. “Understood.” A smile tempts the corners of his lips as his solemn expression slips a little. “Does this mean you’re still in this thing with me?”

I release a weary breath through my nose. “What the hell. What’s another seven months?”

An eternity, my conscience whines.

His face splits into a grin, and he chuckles.

“Say what you want about me, Dornan, but either you have a serious cosplay addiction that requires immediate psychiatric attention…or you like being around me.” He holds up one hand, bringing his thumb and pointer finger within an inch of each other, peering at me through the gap with one eye shut. “At least a little bit.”

I choke out a laugh as I roughly push past him to return the books still bundled in my arms to their rightful homes on the shelves. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

Damian trails my every step, his mouth uncomfortably close to my ear as he says, “Oh, I am very flattered, Dornan. And for what it’s worth, you aren’t such bad company either, even when you are being prickly.”

“I seriously hate you,” I mutter, dipping my head to hide the heat that flares across my cheeks in response to how infuriatingly close he is to me.

“Sure, you do,” Damian taunts, his presence nipping at my heels, even when I make a pointed display of quickening my pace to escape him. “Though, for someone who ‘hates’ me, you put a lot of energy into fighting with me when you could just walk away.”

Am I literally not attempting to do that? I nearly shout at him. Instead, I fire back, “Maybe because you make it so easy,” and stick my tongue out at him over my shoulder.

What is his problem? Is this just his personality, or does he get some sick pleasure out of riling me up?

“Or maybe,” he croons, stepping in front of the exact shelf I’m looking for when we reach the mathematics section, his lips peeling back in a wicked grin, “because you don’t actually hate me nearly as much as you pretend to.”

I flash him a shit-eating grin of my own as I raise my arm to return one of the books, moving to slide it into a spot over his shoulder. “My homicidal urges around you would suggest otherwise.”

He grabs my wrist, holding it and the book clutched in my hand out of reach of the shelf, his eyes piercing. When he speaks, his tone is equal parts flirty and teasing. “Are you sure that’s what those urges are?”

There’s that heat in my face again, except now, it’s spreading throughout my whole body, starting at the exact place where his fingers are touching me.

They burn into my skin, setting my entire nervous system ablaze.

If someone were to come in here with an infrared scanner, I would light up like a damn Christmas tree.

What is happening right now? Damian is still holding my arm, and I’m not trying to pull away, and there’s virtually no space separating us now.

I can feel his heat on my face, and it’s only matched by the heat building between my legs, and…

oh, shit. That heat is going to make me do something really, really stupid.

“Care to find out?” I challenge in a voice I don’t recognize because it definitely doesn’t belong to me. It one hundred percent belongs to my evil, soul-possessing vagina.

That feral grin turns predatory. “You are positively adorable when you’re angry. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Sense slams back into my body, and I glower at him, my words coming out in a gravelly rasp as I snipe back, “And you are insufferable when you’re breathing, which is all the time. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Damian lets go of my arm and leans into my space, forcing me to take a step back. “Insufferable, huh? Hm. Well, it didn’t stop you from fucking me. Twice.”

His voice is sultry, like a kiss of silk against my skin.

This is dangerous, that line between reality and the lie more blurred than ever.

“Biggest regrets of my life,” I retort, digging my heels in and holding my ground.