I shake my head. “Let’s not talk about it. I need to forget that I hate you if I’m going to pretend we’re in love.”
His head jerks up. “So you actually hate me? Because of our whole…history?”
I lean forward. “Wouldn’t you hate someone who cut you out of your best friend’s life? Wouldn’t you hate someone who mocked you for something that really mattered to you?”
He shuts his eyes. “I figured you blamed me for ruining your friendship with Harper, which is stupid. Harper and I had barely started dating when she cut you out of her life. She should have had more loyalty than that.”
I wave a hand. “It’s in the past. Let’s not talk about it.”
His eyes grow intense. “But the fanfic thing… You’ll never forgive me for that, huh?”
“Again, no need to talk about it.”
He frowns. “No, I want to talk about it. Tell me why. Why was it such a big deal? Harper already knew you wrote erotic fanfic. Why do you care if other people know?”
Heat breaks out over my skin at the memory of that day in the quad. The visceral humiliation.
“It wasn’t that. It was mostly that… It’s something I care deeply about. I love writing. I want to be a professional writer someday. You ridiculed me for it.”
His jaw ticks. “I didn’t ridicule you. Harper did.”
“And how did she find out my pseudonym? I wasn’t posting online when she and I were friends.”
He doesn’t answer, probably because it would be pointless. Tristan was the only person besides Cody who knew my fanfic pseudonym back then. He runs the palm of his hand over hisforehead. “I actually really likePride and Prejudice. I’ve read it a few times now.”
My stomach does a little turn. I did see a copy ofPride and Prejudicein his room, but I assumed he hadn’t read it. Or maybe only read parts of it for class.
Maybe this is part of his game. He knows I lovePride and Prejudice, and he’s trying to disarm me.
“Bullshit,” I say. “You’ve never read it once. You didn’t even know it took place in the Regency period.”
His lips quirk. “Try me.”
“What do you mean? You want me to quiz you?”
He nods once. “Go for it.”
“What’s the name of Mr. Collins’s noble patroness?”
His eyes grow unfocused as he narrows them. “Do you mean the aunt? Lady Catherine De Burgh.”
A chill skates from my nape down the entirety of my spine. “Holy shit.”
The smile that overtakes his face is nothing like the smirk I usually see. His chiseled face looks almost boyish. “Told you.”
I clench my jaw. “You might have just seen the movie.”
“No way,” he says. “They don’t call her the noble patroness in the movie.”
“Yes, they do. In the 1995 version, at least.”
He snorts. “No way in hell I’d ever watch that one. I tried, and it was…boring. Andsolong.”
I burst into laughter, unable to help myself. “It is a little long, I’ll admit. A maximal approach to film adaptation, but I still love it. I love everythingPride and Prejudice. It’s…my happy place.”
He grins. “What about it do you love? About writing your fanfic, I mean.”
I let out a long sigh. “I love that it allows me to spend time with the characters I love in a setting that feels like home. Sometimes I get so into writing that it’s like…almost adissociative experience. I disappear from the world I’m in—I even lose track of my body—and I’m totally in the story.”
