Page 9 of My Girl to Ruin

She grabs her bag quickly, movements sharper now, less controlled. “I shouldn’t have come,” she mutters, more to herself than to me.

Then she’s at the door. Gone.

The apartment falls silent again. I stand there, staring at the door long after it closes, my chest heavier than before. The words I threw at her echo in my head.

Too harsh. Too far. I know it. But it doesn’t change anything. Because the truth is worse. I shouldn’t want her. I shouldn’t think about her the way I do. I shouldn’t remember the way she felt against me, the softness of her lips, the way my body reacted like it’s been starved for something I can’t have.

Tyler.

The name settles heavy in my chest. Because of him, Tatum is off-limits. Always has been. Always will be. But that doesn’t stop it. Doesn’t stop the way something inside me shifted the second I tasted her. The way it settled deep, refusing to move.

She’s in my head now. Under my skin. No matter how much I push, she’s not going anywhere.

The worst part?

I’m not sure I want her to.

Chapter Three

Tatum

I should be studying.

My laptop is open in front of me, notes scattered across the screen. Highlighter marks bleed into paragraphs I’ve read at least three times without understanding a single word. My pen rests uselessly between my fingers, unmoving, as my mind drifts somewhere it shouldn’t.

It’s been two days.

Two long, exhausting days, and somehow it feels worse now than it did that night. Worse because the sting of his words hasn’t faded, and worse because they didn’t erase anything. If anything, they made it stronger.

My stomach tightens as the memory surfaces uninvited. Lachlan in his kitchen, sweat still clinging to his skin, tattoos winding down his arms like they’d always been there. His voice, rough and cutting, throwing words at me that still echo in my head.

You think you’re the only woman I’d react to like that?

Heat creeps up my neck anyway, my fingers tightening around my pen. I should hate him. Or at least be over it. But I’m not. Because underneath the hurt, underneath the embarrassment and the humiliation, there’s something else. Something I can’t seem to shake.

He kissed me. He did, and then he stood in his own kitchen and told me it meant nothing, and I’ve spent two days trying to work out which half of that was the lie.

The way he looked at me. His lips, the way they felt on mine. My core pulses in response, hot and insistent. I press my lips together, shaking my head like that might clear it. It doesn’t. Nothing does.

I exhale slowly, push back from my desk, and grab my bag before I can spiral any further.

Classes pass in a blur, my body going through the motions while my mind stays stuck somewhere between anger and something dangerously close to longing. By the time I get back to my dorm, I’m exhausted. Not physically. Emotionally.

I push the door open without thinking.

I freeze.

He’s here.

Lachlan stands by the window like he belongs in the space. Broad shoulders turned slightly as he looks out over the campus, the fading light catching along the sharp lines of his profile. For a second, my brain refuses to process it, like I’m imagining him again.

But then he turns. Blue eyes lock onto mine. Air leaves my lungs.

“What…” My voice comes out thinner than I want it to. I swallow, trying again. “What are you doing here?”

Shock gives way to something sharper, my brows pulling together as I step further into the room. “How did you even get in? How do you know where I live?”

His expression doesn’t change. Not much. “Doesn’t feel good, does it?” he says evenly. “Having your space invaded.”