Chapter 4The Girl with the Sweetest Smile

Every cell in my body went rigid.

The embarrassment was so total, so absolute, I just wanted to cease existing.

But Raymond, it seemed, had no intention of letting me play dead.

“Ellie,” he asked, his voice a low murmur. “Who exactly were you planning on kissing?”

That simple question jolted me back to my senses.

I shot up from his lap like a spring, pressing my palms together in a desperate plea. “Raymond, please! It was just a dare, I swear! Don’t tell my brother, okay? Please?”

His eyes scanned me, his cool expression unreadable as he considered my request. But his reply had nothing to do with it.

“You shouldn’t throw a word like ‘brother’ around so carelessly.”

“Got it?”

In the dim light of the bar, his deep voice seemed to take on a seductive, mesmerizing quality.

The air around me suddenly felt thin.

My heart was a chaotic mess.

I nodded dumbly, but when I opened my mouth, the same stupid word came out. “But, bro, can you just…”

I caught myself halfway through, cutting the word off.

He turned his head slightly, extinguishing the half-smoked cigarette between his fingers. I couldn’t see his expression clearly in the shadows, but I heard it.

A soft, almost imperceptible laugh.

The alcohol must have been starting to really kick in, because my head was spinning faster.

“You’ve been drinking,” Raymond stated. It wasn’t a question.

Terrified he would report my drunken antics to Ethan, I tried to sound tough. “Just a little. Nothing I can’t handle.”

He didn’t seem to get my underlying plea.

“Just sit for a minute. Your brother’s on his way over anyway. You can have him take you back to your dorm or go home with him.”

“My brother?”

Every ounce of dizziness and that strange flutter in my chest vanished instantly.

I was starting to think Raymond was threatening me. Blackmailing me.

He was going to wait for Ethan to get here and then rat me out. He’d tell him how I behaved when I was drunk. How I’d shamelessly hit on him.

My voice trembled. “He can’t know I’m here. I have to go, before he arrives.”

I was in such a rush that I slammed my shin hard against the corner of the table.

His hand shot out and closed around my wrist.

A steady warmth seeped into my skin.

“Don’t panic,” he said, his voice low and soothing. But then, a hint of amusement crept into his tone, the sound of someone enjoying the show.

“I think you’re a little too late for that, Ellie-gator.”

And right on cue, a familiar voice growled from behind me, each word dripping with menace.

“Ellie. You’ve got some nerve. How is it that I run into you everywhere I go?”

Oh, no.

My life is over. Again. And again. And again.