I let out a dark chuckle, still staring at the sun and ignoring the burn. I wished that giant fireball were as good at burning memories as it was burning retinas.

“I thought the English prided themselves on having good manners.”

“I thought the Americans were straight shooters,” she quipped.

“We are.”

“If you want to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I was all three.

I almost let a genuine smile grace my lips. Almost. Then I remembered who she was. What she knew.

“About that incident you witnessed…”

“Loosen your knickers, Vaughn. You’ve got them in a twist.” She had the nerve to cut me off mid-speech, her wet mouth moving fast. “I’ve never shared your secret and never will. It’s not my style, my business, or my information to tell. Believe it or not, my not moving to California when my dad and Poppy did had nothing to do with you. I love Carlisle Prep. It’s the best arts school in Europe. I wasn’t scared of you. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve never met before, and I know nothing about you, other than the obvious information that’s freely volunteered at All Saints High.”

She waited for the question. Normally, I wouldn’t entertain this kind of behavior. But she amused me. Circus monkey—as I’ve said before.

“Which is?” I leaned forward.

“That you’re a miserable, sadistic arse who enjoys using girls and bullying people.”

If she waited for a reaction to my reputation, she was sorely disappointed. I leaned forward, propping my elbows on my knees, narrowing my eyes at her face.

“Why should I believe you?”

She plastered her palm against the ledge of the pool and pulled herself up in one go, rising from the water until she stood in front of me.

No bikini top.

No bottoms.

No nothing.

Good Girl was completely naked, wet and bold, and perhaps she wasn’t so mediocre in that particular moment.

Let’s just say if there ever was a mood in which I’d let her suck my cock and massage my balls, I was experiencing it now.

Her tits were small, but round and perky, her nipples pointy, pink, and begging to be sucked. She had a curvy body, although she did a damn good job hiding all that silky, smooth flesh under the black fishnets and leather pants, and her pussy had a dusting of fair hair. Not a lot, but enough to show me she was a real, virginal blonde—not waxed, bleached, and groomed to death, waiting to give some douchebag the full Pornhub experience of a closely shaved cunt.

There was also a tattoo on her inner thigh, but I couldn’t get a good look at what it said, and gawking was letting her win.

Returning my eyes to her face, I decided maybe it wasn’t so bland after all. Everything about her was small—nose, lips, freckles, ears—but her eyes were huge and aqua. The mass of inky, long hair with the egg-yolk roots did nothing to hide the fact that she was who she was.

Pure, pathetic, and partially insane.

I stood tall, lifting my chin, knowing full fucking well my dick wasn’t going to swell in my pants unless I wanted it to. That was one of the best things about my screwed-up condition. I was able to fully control my libido, and I was hard on demand—my demand. Most teenage dicks were traitors, and they got my friends into a lot of shit that had nothing to do with anal. Not mine. Mine listened. And right now, I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing I wanted to fuck her smart mouth.

We were toe-to-toe. I was a head and a half taller, but somehow, with her chin tilted up in a dead stare and noticeably disobedient posture, she didn’t feel so small against me.

She wasn’t the same shivering girl who’d pretended to be asleep and begged with her entire, silent body for me not to cut her throat that night.

Similar, but different.

Innocent, but no longer submissive.

“You should believe me,” she announced, “because in order to destroy you, I need to acknowledge you first. See, in order to ruin a person’s life, you need to hate them. Be jealous of them. Feel some type of passionate response toward them. You stir nothing in me, Vaughn Spencer. Not even disgust. Not even pity, though I really should pity you. You’re the gum stuck to the bottom of my boots. You are a fleeting moment no one remembers—unremarkable, unnecessary, and utterly forgettable. You are the guy I once believed could kill me, so because of you—yes, because of you—I started on the road toward who I am today. Invincible. You can’t scare me anymore, Spencer. I am unbreakable. Try me.”

I took a step back, still holding her gaze. I knew I would throttle her if I stayed close. Not because I didn’t believe she didn’t care about me, but because I did.