He Asked Me Out to Get Back at Her, I Gave Him a Rulebook Instead Chapter 06

He Asked Me Out to Get Back at Her, I Gave Him a Rulebook Instead Chapter 06

Ronan was pacing outside my dorm.

How bad was the fever? Why wasn’t she coming out?

He kept checking his phone, not realizing how worried he looked.

I slipped into a new dress I’d been saving, checked myself in the mirror, and walked out smiling.

I ignored the storm on his face and looped my arm through his. “Good boy. You came right away.

His whole body went rigid. She’d played him.

“You don’t have a fever.”

I didn’t answer. The second I saw his face harden, I dropped his arm and let my own expression go flat.

He’d been lying to me since day one. If one taste of his own medicine made him angry, that was his problem.

The stream of floating comments was having a field day. [She has ZERO tolerance. The MMC raises his voice once and she’s already walking away.]

[If she keeps this up, she’s going to push him straight back to the FMC.]

Something in his chest tightened like a fist. He grabbed my hand, hard, and wouldn’t let go.

If it wasn’t for that stupid bet…

He would never, never put up with someone like her.

Every meal he’d delivered, every rule he’d memorized, every text he’d sent within sixty seconds, and she’d been playing him the whole time.

It burned worse than Vivienne’s rejection. And that scared him

He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t name why.

“I was worried about you!” The words ripped out of him before he could stop them.

A hundred rules. Who does that? Who actually follows a hundred rules?

He’d followed every single one, and she still treated him like he was nothing.

What was he to her?

A joke?

That look she’d given him, cold and blank, like he could disappear and she wouldn’t notice, had made his

stomach drop.

Lownel. He was too loud. People outside the dorm were starting to stare.

I swatted his hand away.

He caught it instantly: the flinch, the glance around. His voice dropped. “You think I’m embarrassing you?”

He wasn’t stupid. He’d spent the whole week learning how to read me.

The anger drained out of his face. What was left underneath looked a lot like pain.

Ronan wasn’t built for this. Nothing in his life had ever required this much patience with one person.

When Vivienne had rejected him, he’d just walked away. Clean break. No second thoughts.

I let a small smile slip.

“You know I ‘ve got you figured out, right, Ronan?”

“I know everything you like.”

He didn’t know where this was going. He nodded anyway, something tight in his throat. “Yeah.”

“So how would I know you this well and not figure out that you’re only with me because of her?”

“We both know we’re from different worlds. If Vivienne came to you tomorrow and said she wanted the whole thing, the future, the families, all of it, would you say no?”

I wasn’t the kind of person who waited for things to happen to her.

I let the question sit. Then I pulled free from his grip.

He couldn’t look at me.

I didn’t know what was going through his head. But when he finally looked up, something in his eyes had changed.

“What do you want for dinner?”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

I watched his face and did the math. The $300K was safe, at minimum.

A man who felt nothing wouldn’t get this angry. Not Ronan. Not with his pride.

And his pride told me everything I needed to know.