Yeah, once upon a time I’d been a good girl. It had earned me an arch enemy. I should have bitten and kicked him when I had the chance, not let him set the tone of our dysfunctional relationship.

“Here, take my Caesar salad. I’m so full from that green shake I had this morning.” Poppy slid her tray toward him.

Even as I flipped a page and tried to concentrate on the book, I could tell he was looking at me. I didn’t get him. He’d come to my house—broke into it—and threatened me not to share his secret. I’d obliged without resistance. Even though I’d played it cool, I’d been mortified by him watching me stark naked. I hadn’t spoken to a soul at All Saints High. Not about his secret, not about our history, and not at all.

He’d challenged me to a war I didn’t want, but I wasn’t going to avoid it at any cost.

Vaughn didn’t answer Poppy. And Knight, who had the good sense not to bully me since he wanted to get into my sister’s knickers, elbowed his ribs with a frown.

“Say thank you, Lord McCuntson. Poppy was being nice.”

“I’m not hungry,” he said with his well-practiced icy boredom.

My stomach twisted into deadly knots. I could feel the chill of his pale, cerulean eyes wherever they landed on me, and I suppressed the violent shivers prickling my skin.

“How come?” Arabella drawled seductively, not reading the room.

“I find certain things unappealing to a point of revulsion.”

I saw his gaze from the corner of my eye, skating over my lips. He dug at the knee-hole in his black skinny jeans. His knee was slightly tan, with golden hair—different than the sickly, white-blue he’d been as a child. Smooth and muscular and unfairly perfect.

That was the tragic thing about Vaughn Spencer. He was perfect.

The cold shock of his beauty knocked the breath out of you like a supernova. With ruby, bee-stung lips and wild blue eyes, framed by thick, masculine eyebrows and cheekbones right out of the comic books.

He was gorgeous, and I was not.

He was popular, and I was an outcast.

He was everything, and I was…

Heat rose up my neck, but I kept my eyes trained on the same line of the same page I’d started before he approached the table. I thought about something I’d read not too long ago about how the world breaks everyone, but their broken places end up being stronger as a result. Ernest Hemingway said that, and I hoped it was true.

I ignored it when the football team chuckled and bumped shoulders, pointing at me. Poppy glared at Vaughn, openmouthed, furious, but too ladylike to make a scene.

“Vaughn finds life repulsive. Don’t take it personally.” Knight threw a French fry at Spencer, laughing to lighten the mood.

I could feel Arabella’s eyes on me—assessing, taunting, waiting. She never could look at me without turning red. Sometimes she looked at Poppy the same way. I knew how territorial she was about Knight, Vaughn, and Hunter—the third amigo. She regarded them like some impossible prize. Them giving me attention rattled something deep inside her.

“Yeah. You’re not repulsive in the slightest. I would fuck you, and not even just anal. I would gladly look at your face as I plunge into you.” Hunter snagged my can of Diet Coke and chugged it empty in one go.

If Knight was a golden boy and Vaughn was a bad boy, Hunter was a mix of the two, with hair a rich hue of wheat and a cunning smile even his mother couldn’t trust.

“I would look into your eyes while eating you like a Del Taco on a road trip. Nasty, but worth it,” one of the jocks exclaimed, shooting me a wink.

“I raise you looking into her eyes and add an Atticus quote while I wreck her uterus. But that’s gonna cost you a cream pie,” a third tsksed in my direction, dipping his index and middle fingers into a cupcake on his tray suggestively.

Vaughn sat back, an amused smirk on his face.

I yawned, flipping another page without processing any of the text. Vaughn was pushing it. I was honoring my side of the deal between us and keeping my mouth shut, yet he deliberately antagonized me.

None of it made sense. Vaughn wasn’t daft. He was cruel when messed with, but if you kept your distance, you were safe.

Why wasn’t I safe?

“Thanks for the riveting mental images, dipshits.” Vaughn stood up, glancing around. “Where’s Alice Hamlin? I could use a blowie right now.”

Jesus Christ.

“She’s with her new boyfriend.” Arabella tossed her hair, sucking her green shake’s straw unnecessarily hard.

“Good. He can watch,” Vaughn clipped, pivoting and making a beeline to the doors. I’d almost taken a relieved breath—almost—when he paused and turned around, as if forgetting something.

“Lenora.”

My name felt like whiplash curling on his tongue. Poppy winced. I had no choice but to look up. I put a little smile on my black-hued lips, just to make sure he knew I wasn’t impressed.