Page 90 of Wildest Dreams

It’s not the guy I would have been with her.

Because if Aisling had given me a chance, the past four years would have been completely different.

Aisling’s frown is quivering, making my own brow crease, hands dying to wrap themselves around her shoulders and comfort her.

“It was silly,” she whispers, looking away from me when I shake my head. “It was… literally just a one night stand. I made it into this huge thing in my head but I think, at the end of the day, maybe it was just what we refused to call it the night before.”

The cords in my throat tighten and I roll out my shoulders as they begin to swell.

“No.” I swipe my tongue over my lower lip, refusing to let her lie to herself like this. “It was never like that. What your friendstexted you the morning after… that’s what everyone wanted me to be. It’s not who I was.”

She breathes out a quiet, sarcastic laugh, rolling her eyes to try and keep the mood light. “What, so it would have all been fine if I hadn’tfound out about your reputation?”

She gives me a sad, almost forgiving smile and it hurts in a way that no glare ever could.

She swallows and swipes at the rain hammering against her forehead, blinking away from me as her cheeks turn red.

“I was upset with what I saw, but I wasn’t just sad about losing you, or the idea of who I thought you were,” she says. “I was mad with myself because I was supposed to be turning a new leaf. I know about how hard it is to break a reputation and I thought that starting college would be my fresh start. I wouldn’t have to be this icy heartbreaker anymore who only messed around with guys who were these big, brawny players. I didn’t want to fall for the bad boy, because I didn’t want to be the badgirlanymore. I didn’t want a guy whose phone was blowing up every five seconds. I wantedthe kind of small town sweetheart that a big city heiress never had the chance of meeting before.” She takes a long shaky breath and adds on in a little whisper, “I wanted the guy that I thought you were before I knew who you really are.”

My chest feels hard as steel, rigid and unmoving as she hits me with blow after blow.

She was sad about losing me before we had even had a chance to start.

I drag my palm down my jaw, scraping my stubble over my skin.

“Realising that I’d just made the same mistake that I always did was kind of the wake up call that I needed – to put all of this, like, delusional ‘hopeless romantic’ stuff out of my mind and be the same girl who I’ve always been.” She does this self-depreciating smile as she lifts her hands to make air-quotes, and a tiny dimple pops in her cheek. “The ‘bad girl’,” she says with a playful roll of her eyes, half-laughing, half-sighing as she drops her hands back to her sides.

I shake my head and step closer to her, begging her to touch me as I gently crowd her space.

“It doesn’t have to be like that. Not anymore, Aisling.”

I duck my head so that she has nowhere to look except straight in my eyes.

“You said it yourself – it’s hard to break a reputation – and the reputation that I made for myself at high school followed me straight to Carter U.”

I roll my shoulders uncomfortably, my chest feeling tight as I bare myself to her.

Wearing my heart on my sleeve.

“I fucked around a lot at high school. I didn’t have relationships. It was just sex, nothing emotional. But that doesn’t mean that I never intended to fall in love with someone. My parents had that instant-love type of thing and I just” – I shake more rain from my hair, then shove it back with my hand – “I knew that I’d be the same. Fall once, fall hard, and don’t get back up. It’s goddamn hereditary. And I knew the second that I saw you that I wouldn’t want anyone else.”

She shakes her head as she frowns down at her sandals but her twiddling fingers clutch tightly around the drawstring of my shorts.

Yes.I instantly wrap one of my forearms around her lower back, tugging her closer, and envelop my other hand around one of her biceps, caressing her gently as her eyes meet mine.

“Those texts?” I rumble, my voice hoarse and gruff. “They were bullshit. We were – what? – one week into our freshman year? Those chicks didn’t know me and I had no fuckin’ interest in knowing them.”

I breathe out a humourless laugh, still in disbelief over the story Aisling just enlightened me to.

“I really liked you, Aisling, and I thought that you liked me too. Liked me for something other than being a good fuck.”

I frown at the thought and now I’m the one who can’t meet her eyes, chest pumping rapidly as I stare at the rainfall slashing through the water’s surface.

Aisling senses the sting in my chest.

“I did like you, Tanner. But you have to understand how bad it freakingsuckedto have fallen asleep thinking that you were some, like, small town cutie, and woken up to realise that every girl on campus was lining up at your front door.”

“I wouldn’t have opened that door to them, Aisling. I only wanted you.” My gaze collides with hers and a peal of thunder ripples threateningly beyond the mountain.

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