Page 85 of Because I Liked A Boy
It wasn’t chance. It wasn’t fate. It was him.
Hunter.
He’d been sent for me.
The sound that left me was half-sob, half-choke. I pressed a hand to my mouth, folder trembling against my chest like I could smother the truth. My tears dripped onto the page, blurring ink, but nothing could erase the words.
A floorboard creaked behind me.
“Baby?” His voice carried down the hall, casual at first, warm from sleep. “What was that noise?”
My heart stopped.
Slowly—like every bone in my body had turned to stone—I turned. The folder dangled in my hands, pages trembling as badly as my fingers.
Hunter stopped in the doorway.
His eyes landed on the file. He froze. His face drained, lips parting, green eyes widening just a fraction before his jaw clenched tight.
“Fuck.”
The sound of that single word broke me worse than anything I’d read.
“You son of a bitch.” The words ripped out of me, raw, ragged. Tears didn’t soften them—they sharpened them into blades. “You’ve been lying to me this whole fucking time?”
“Isabella—” His voice was rough, desperate.
“Don’t you dare say my name like it means something to you.” My chest heaved, my grip on the folder so tight the edges cut into my palms. “Don’t you dare pretend any of this meant something to you.”
He stepped forward, hands slightly raised like I was something fragile. “I can explain—”
“Explain?” My laugh was jagged, broken, spilling into a sob. “What exactly? That you’ve been tracking me like prey? That every time I thought I was choosing for myself—you were there, taking notes, reporting back?” I shook the folder so hard the pages slapped together. “That my father—my fucking father—sent you to spy on me?”
His silence was the only answer I needed.
My tears turned to fire, streaking hot down my cheeks. “Jesus Christ, Hunter.”
“I didn’t—” He dragged a hand over his face, voice cracking. “It started that way, yeah. But it’s not like that anymore. You changed everything.”
“Don’t you dare feed me that line.” My rage tore my throat raw. “How long did you practice that one? Between writing down every latte I ordered at TheMaple Bean?”
His chest heaved, eyes desperate. “Damn it, Isabella, I never wanted you to find out like this.”
“Oh, isn’t that sweet?” I snapped. “I was just supposed to keep living in your perfect little lie? Believing every filthy word out of your mouth while you ran back to my father like his obedient fucking lapdog?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then tell me what the fuck it’s like!” I screamed, my voice splintering. “Tell me how it feels to fuck me while you hand my life over to the man I ran from!”
He flinched like I’d slapped him. His hands flexed. “I didn’t fake us. Not once. Not a single fucking second with you was fake.”
The words cut too deep. For half a second, I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to. But the folder in my hands weighed heavier than anything I’d ever carried.
“You don’t get to say that.” My whisper cracked, splintered. “Not when every second of us was built on a lie.” Tears blurred everything. My voice shook but I forced it out anyway: “I trusted you.”
His face twisted, wrecked.
“I loved you.” My voice splintered, the truth tearing out of me like glass. “And you ruined it.”
