Page 93 of Endgame

Does eating count as a sport? “Not a one.”

“Oh.” Amelia looked at me with a thoughtful expression.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she was quick to reply, a little red faced. “I was just thinking about something.”

“Care to share?”

“It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Now I really want to know.”

“I was just remembering something I heard at soccer practice today,” she told me with a sheepish expression. “Something a few of the girls were saying about you and um… Rourke.”

Now I was the one to blush.

“What about me and Rourke?”

Amelia stared at me, her expression unreadable. “Some of the girls at school seem to be under the impression that you and Rourke are…a thing.”

“Athing?” I paled and quickly shook my head. “Why would anyone think that?”

“Because Rourke finally ended things with Brittany Beckitt yesterday,” Amelia supplied, intelligent blue eyes scanning my face. “For good, this time. And according to Sami Davidson – a senior on the cheerleading team – Britt went ballistic.”

He did?

Rourke really ended his screwed-up relationship with Britt –the girl he liked to fuck?

Ugh.

“What does any of that have to do with me?” I asked with a shaky voice. My palms were sweating, my heart racing erratically in my chest.

Why was I nervous? I didn’t need to feel nervous.

In fact, I shouldn’t be feeling anything at all.

Not about Rourke freaking Owens.

You see, I had a new resolve;do not succumb to my stepbrother’s charms.

Rourke could prance around the house half naked all he wanted. He could wink and flirt with me, and brush against my body with his to his heart’s content.

It wouldn’t affect me.

I wouldn’t allow it to.

Not since the words“I’m offering to fuck you,”came out of his mouth last night.

Whatever lunacy that had possessed me these last six weeks had taken a back seat to common sense. The desires and urges I felt towards Rourke were now repressed and safely locked away in my brain somewhere, in a big box with the wordsdon’t touch, he’ll fuck you upscrawled over it.

Amelia raised her brows and gave me a‘don’t treat me like I’m stupid’expression. “I’m not blind, Mercy,” she said with a small frown. “I don’t know what it is, but there is definitelysomethinghappening between you and my brother.”

“There really isn’t,” I lied, feeling the burn all the way down to my toes. “Anything between us, I mean.”

“I know how Rourke presents himself to the world,” Amelia continued like I hadn’t spoken. “A foulmouthed asshole who doesn’t give a damn about anyone, but it’s not true. Don’t believe the act. Look beyond it. There’s a broken boy screaming out to be loved underneath that hard exterior. You just have to scratch at the surface.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

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