“Some of the younger guys—Beau and Kyle, specifically—they took that and made it into an actual bet without telling me. I didn’t know about it until weeks later.”
“And what did you do when you found out?”
“I shut it down. I swear to you I did. You can ask Liam, Gordy, or Foster. They were there too. I told them it was fucked up and made them call it off.”
“When?”
“When what?”
“When did you shut it down? What date?”
Drew’s face went even paler. “I-I don’t remember exactly. It was after we started getting closer, after?—”
“After you started working on me,” I finished. “After you realized what was happening between us.”
“No!” His voice was sharp with desperation. “Harper, no. My feelings for you are real. Everything between us is real.”
“Is it?” I tilted my head, studying his face. “Because what I heard was that there was a bet about whether you’d get me to sleep with you, and suddenly you were being nice to me. Asking for my help with Rory, being vulnerable, opening up about your past. All the things that would make a girl fall for you.”
“That’s not—the timing doesn’t line up like that?—”
“Doesn’t it? You know, a part of me always wondered why you never retaliated after my review site prank, but now I’m realizing, maybe this time it was a long game for you.”
He stared at me like his brain had short-circuited, and the longer he took to answer, the more my heart sank.
He took a breath. “Harper, Iswearto you, I never set out to manipulate you. I never had some grand plan to make you fall for me to win a bet. My feelings developed naturally as I got to know you.”
“But you did know about the bet. Even if you didn’t start it, you knew about it and you didn’t tell me.”
Drew’s silence was answer enough.
“How long?” I asked.
“Harper—”
“How long did you know about the bet while we were together? While you were telling me you loved me and I was falling for you?”
“I found out about it a few weeks before we got together officially,” he admitted quietly. “So…the whole time.”
“The whole time.” I laughed, but it came out broken. “So our entire relationship, you knew there were people betting on whether you could get me into bed, and you said nothing.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you?—”
“You didn’t want me to know the truth. There’s a difference.”
Drew’s eyes were pleading. “Harper, I understand how this looks, but I need you to believe me. What we have is real. I love you. I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you.”
I studied his face—the face I’d traced with my fingers, the eyes that had looked at me with such tenderness, the mouth that had whispered promises against my skin. He looked sincere and a little desperate. Maybe even a smidge heartbroken.
Or maybe I was projecting my own feelings at this point.
I’d believed him before. I’d believed him when he said he’d changed.
When he said I mattered to him.
When he said he loved me.
And all the while, there had been this secret hanging over us.
