My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 11

Chapter 11 He Crossed Them All Out

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Ryder slumped into the chair. He stretched his long legs out beneath the table. The scuffed toe of his boot bumped against my sneaker. I

flinched, jerking my foot back and tucking my legs tightly under my own chair.

He noticed the movement. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t say anything. He rested his forearms on the table. He smelled

like cold rain, old leather, and that same sharp, clean trace of peppermint.

“You look terrible, Petrova, he stated. His rough voice scraped against the quiet hum of the library.

1 stiffened. “I didn’t sleep.”

“Guilt keeping you awake?”

“Anxiety,” I corrected coldly. I reached out and tapped the manila folder. “I brought the terms.”

His eyebrows pulled together, creating a deep crease over the bridge of his nose. He looked at the folder like it was a live grenade. “The

terms?”

“We are entering an arrangement,” I explained, slipping into my debate-team cadence. My voice shook a little, but I pushed through it. “If

this is going to work, we need parameters. Expectations. We need to be on exactly the same page, or Harper Vance will see right through

us.”

I slid the folder across the scratched wood.

Ryder stared at it for a long moment. He didn’t reach for it. He looked up at me, his hazel eyes completely unreadable. Then, slowly, he

flipped the folder open.

He leaned over the two sheets of paper. His dark hair fell forward, hiding his eyes.

The silence stretched. It was agonizing. I watched his eyes scan the neat, double-spaced paragraphs. I waited for the laughter. I waited for

him to call me a freak, to tear the paper in half and walk out.

He didn’t laugh. But his jaw tightened.

He read Clause 1. Then Clause 2.

He reached into the inner pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a battered black pen. He clicked the top with his thumb.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice rising an octave.

Ryder didn’t look up. He pressed the tip of the pen against the paper.

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12:37 Fri, Jul 10

Chapter 11 He Crossed Them All Out

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With a heavy, aggressive slash, he crossed out Clause 1. The dark black ink ruined my perfectly printed text.

My breath caught in my throat. “Stop. Those are the physical boundaries. We need a schedule for-”

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He crossed out Clause 2. A thick, dark line straight through the middle of the paragraph. The tip of his pen dug so deep it nearly tore the

paper.

“Ryder, stop it, I hissed, leaning forward and trying to snatch the paper away.

He planted his large hand flat in the center of the document, trapping it against the table. His knuckles brushed against my fingertips. His

skin was rough, calloused, and searing hot.

I yanked my hand back as if I had been burned. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

Ryder lifted his head.

The bored, indifferent mask was gone. His eyes were dark, intense, and furious. The raw energy radiating off him was terrifying. He didn’t look like a boy playing a game.

He tossed the black pen onto the table. It clattered loudly against the wood, rolling until it hit the edge of my notebook.

“You think this is a biology lab?” he demanded, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a rough, gravelly whisper that sent a cold shiver

down my spine. “You think you can chart this on a spreadsheet, Petrova?”

“I need control,” I whispered back, my voice barely audible. My throat felt incredibly tight. “I need to know what to expect.”

*You want Harper Vance to believe I’m looking at you?” he asked, ignoring my plea. He leaned closer, closing the physical distance

between us until the scent of him completely overwhelmed my senses. “You think a timed, four-minute hand-hold in the hallway is going

to convince a school full of vipers that I give a damn about you?”

I shrank back against my hard wooden chair. “It’s a starting point.”

“It’s garbage.”

He grabbed the top edge of the contract and spun it around, sliding it back across the table until it hit my hands.

I looked down.

The neat, clinical rules that had kept me sane at three in the morning were obliterated by thick, angry black ink. He hadn’t just crossed

out the paragraphs; he had destroyed them.

But at the very bottom of the page, in the empty white margin below my signature line, he had written something.

His handwriting was sharp, messy, and slanted. It looked exactly like him.

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