My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 116

Chapter 116 Seeing His Real Jealousy

Ryder possessed a target pool. He narrowed the entire male student body down to a handful of suspects in less than three minutes.

“Ryder, listen to me,” I demanded.

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I stepped into his line of sight. I planted my scuffed loafers on the carpet. 1 blocked his view of the corner table. I forced him to look at

my face.

“You cannot tear the school apart over a piece of paper,” I said. “You will earn a suspension. The administration looks for an excuse to expel you. You promised my mother you would not drag me down. You promised to clear my path.”

The mention of my mother brought a flicker of hesitation to his eyes. But the dark storm swallowed the hesitation a second later.

“I promised her I would guard the gates,” he corrected. His voice sounded like cracked stone. “A coward sliding notes into your locker stands at the gate. He watches you.”

“He wrote a flattering note. He thinks he can offer me a safe harbor.”

“He called me a chaos you need saving from, Ryder fired back.

“Because they believe the contract!” I threw my hands up in frustration. The confusion warped into a sharp, undeniable ache in my chest. “They think you use me for PR. They think the entire relationship is a transaction. You told me we needed a grand gesture to fix the public image. The note proves the image still has cracks. But you do not need to hunt this boy down to fix a rumor. Let the rumor die on

its own.

Ryder took a step forward. He invaded my personal space. The familiar heat radiating from his chest washed over the chill in my bones.

‘I do not care about the public image, he breathed.

The confession hung in the quiet library. The words carried a heavy, devastating weight.

I stared up at him. My breath hitched in my throat. The logic equations in my head shattered into a million pieces.

“You said we needed to convince them,” I countered. “You said we needed to make them believe the obsession.”

‘I lied.

He lifted his right hand. He did not touch my skin. He hovered his scarred knuckles a fraction of an inch from my cheek. The restraint cost him a massive amount of physical effort. I saw the tendons in his wrist strain against the effort.

I do not give a single thought to what Trent Lawson thinks of me,” Ryder murmured. The rough gravel in his voice scraped against my taw nerve endings. I do not care if Harper Vance believes the transaction. I brought the flowers to calculus because I wanted to see you

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Chapter 116 Seeing His Real Jealousy

smile. I did it because I hate watching you sit in that room looking like you carry the weight of the entire world on your shoulders.”

My chest tightened. The air in my lungs turned to ash.

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Then why are you doing this?” I demanded. I gestured to the empty library tables around us. “Why are you tracking this guy down like he

committed a crime? Why does a single piece of paper matter?”

Ryder dropped his hand. He clenched his fingers into a tight fist at his side.

“Because he thinks he can take you away,” he stated.

I stared at his rigid jaw. I looked at the dark, storming fury in his eyes. I spent the entire bus ride trying to convince myself the feelings were a byproduct of the contract. I tried to reduce our connection to a stress response. I built a fortress of denial to protect my fragile

heart.

But Ryder did not look stressed. He looked territorial.

He did not hunt the author to protect his pride. He did not care about the Crestview Prep social hierarchy. He searched the halls because another boy dared to look at me. He searched the halls because another boy offered me a way out of the darkness.

The jealousy radiating from his massive frame held zero traces of a performance. The fake dating rules offered no explanation for the raw, bleeding possession in his gaze.

He was not acting. He was not protecting a lie. He was not fulfilling a clause in a contract we drafted in an empty science lab.

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