Page 116 of Poison Aches

“Ask what?”

“How does it feel?”

“How does what feel?”

Just as the plane starts speeding down the runway, I lean closer to Angel.

“Passing the MCATs after some wildly creative coding lines on your part?”

CHAPTER 15

Ivy

Everything in me screeches to a sudden and immediate halt.

Did I hear that correctly?

No, there’s no way he just said that. No, it’s impossible.

My guilt must be playing tricks on me.

But as I turn my head to look fully at the large, perfectly calm and slightly smirking jerk beside me, I can see it in his eyes.

He knows.

He knows everything.

“E-excuse you?” I croak hoarsely, as if a large, rusty ball of nails is stuck in my throat.

Emmett’s sharp green eyes just watch me, not smiling, nor frowning, nor is there any disapproval either. He just looks… excited. Expectant. As if he’s watching a rabbit fall into a trap.

“What did you just say?” I whisper brokenly.

“Come now, Angel, an intelligent girl like you should know better than to fake deafness,” he says in a low, deep voice that if I’m being honest, I had missed the feel of after all this time of not seeing him, hearing him, being in his all-knowing presence that still unnerves me even after I practically grew up with the guy.

He holds my stare, studying every minute emotion that crosses my face, I’m sure, but I’m still stunned.

So, I decide to go for the most obvious defense tactic… “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Emmett actually smiles this time.

He shakes his head, making the rugged curly tussles of dark locks atop his head shake slightly and then fall back into place as if it were a choreographed move.

“Yeah, I’m sure you don’t,” he says with a chuckle. “Just as I’m sure you don’t know how impossible it is to a get a near-perfect score on those MCATs or whatever they are called.”

“What?”

“Like seriously, Angel, did you even do your research on this or were you just panicked and didn’t want to take a chance on being rejected again?”

My heart starts pounding, slow, hard, and almost knocking the breath out of my lungs.

“T-that’s not…”

“I mean, it would be understandable if you had changed the score to something a bit plausible from all your other previous scores. This… now this is a suspicious leap that no one will miss, don’t you think?”

It’s only then that I notice he’s holding an iPad, the page directly open onto my MCATs dashboard.

“How did you get into my account?” I demand. “Did you hack me?”

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