Chapter 4

MEGAN

I could hardly breathe.

Scratch that, I couldn’t even think.

He tightened his grip on my shirt. “Tell me, what are you doing here?” His mouth was still pressed against my ear. I couldn’t even move. Humiliation, anger, and surprise slammed into me all at once. “Cat got your tongue?”

“I school here,” I blurted out, seething. Today was a really bad day. I just got assigned to the Vancleaf hockey team, but I had to endure this man as well? “Now can I go?”

“Not so fast.” He warned. He then whirled me around so I was staring into those deep eyes. He dragged them over my features like he was trying to confirm something, then he made a small sound of disapproval. “When were you planning to tell me the truth?”

My pulse spiked. “What truth?”

“You’re not Marley Pann,” he said as a matter of fact. I inhaled a shaky breath. My legs could barely keep up. He leaned into me until his shoes brushed against mine. “You’re Megan Qing.”

My brain short-circuited.

He knew me.

He literally knew me.

I tried to run again.

He grabbed my collar, pulling me until my back slammed against his chest. “Why are you so fond of running? Where’s the girl who couldn’t stop running her mouth a few days ago?”

I gritted my teeth against each other. I hated everything about him. His guts. His voice. His eyes. His damn looks. Stunning, but I hated him regardless.

“How do you even know my name?” I couldn’t help but ask. “How long have you known I’m not Marley?”

“You think I’m stupid?”

“No, I—”

“You’re Marley’s roommate,” he continued, and how accurate he was left me gagged. “You agreed to stand in for her.”

There was no way out of this. I needed to bury my pride and solve this reasonably. He was a hockey captain. He had a reputation. The looks. Possibly power.

Who knew what he could do?

So I huffed a laugh, then turned to face him like we were really good friends. “Of course you can’t be fooled, you’re Vinn Graham,” I forced a smile. “I was totally expecting that.”

His face was blank. “You’re trying to kiss my ass now?”

“What?” My voice faltered. “No. What I’m trying to say is…” I feared my smile was starting to look forced. “You don’t have to cause a scene because I pretended to be Marley, I—”

“I, Vinn Graham,” he gestured to himself, that arrogant grin finding its way back to his lips, “shouldn’t cause a scene because of the heinous crime you committed a few days ago?”

Heinous crime? Marley, what the hell have you gotten me into? I scratched the back of my neck, racking my brain for ways to resolve this. “Fine, then. Do you want an apology?”

A low laugh rumbled from his chest. “You still don’t understand the gravity of what you did, right?”

Now that he put it that way, shame hit me hard. Something awful twisted in my gut and wouldn’t stop. It kept circling and reminding me that I did something terrible. And this time, I might not walk away unscathed.

Vinn stared down at me, dark eyes piercing straight through my soul. “An apology isn’t enough,” he stated. “An apology is literally meaningless.”

“Then what do you want?”

His lips twitched and a second later, those thin lips curved into a smirk. He licked them slowly with his tongue. I didn’t know why my eyes wouldn’t look away. For some fucked up reasons, they just kept following the movement.

“You know,” he began slowly, “no one in this entire university talks to me this way. Not even the lecturers.”

I inhaled a shaky breath.

I had noticed how polite the lecturer’s voice was earlier. He couldn’t yell or raise his voice even when Vinn was clearly absent.

Who exactly was he?

His gaze sharpened. “Not even the professors.”

Then he stared at me like he could crush me. Ruin me. Make me regret everything I’d done. The need to apologize sat at the tip of my tongue. I almost said it out loud.

“But you, Megan Qing, keep crossing the line.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “Everything I said at the blind date, I take it all back.”

I was a coward.

A total coward. But Vinn scared me. I just wanted to run. Get out of there as fast as possible.

His grin broadened. There was this teasing spark in his eyes that sent rage dripping into my blood. He was enjoying this. “I told you an apology isn’t enough.”

“Why not?”

“My grandmother takes my blind dates really seriously. If she finds out about what you did—” he shook his head dramatically. “You’re not going to like what’s going to happen.”

Despite the situation, my mouth still ran. “And who exactly is your grandmother?”

His gaze darkened. “The owner of this whole building. This college. The place you’re standing right now,” a small smirk slid onto his face. “One word and you’ll lose your admission.”

His grandmother was the owner of this university? My pulse stumbled. I was doomed. “I… I can’t lose my admission, please,” I swallowed my damn pride. The satisfaction in his eyes was maddening. “I’ll do anything. Absolutely anything to fix this.”

“Now that you’re really serious,” he tipped my chin up, “I’ll tell you what you have to do. You’re going to fake date me.”

“What?!”

“Yes.”

“NO!”

“Fine, then. I guess your admission doesn’t matter.”

Oh my God, was he threatening me right now?

“Fake date me so my grandmother stops setting me up with new blind dates,” he said again. “And you can get your crush jealous.”

I blinked, my face flushed. “You know?”

He shrugged. “It was pretty obvious.”

I pressed my lips against each other, a small smile tipped the corner of my lips at the thought of James. “I’ve liked him since—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Vinn said distastefully. “Answer my question. Will you fake date me to keep my grandmother off my back?”