LOGINAvery Nash had two lives and one rule. Keep them completely separate. By day she was the captain of the Crestwood University cheer squad and a Business Management student holding onto her scholarship by her fingernails. By night she was Scarlett, masked and wigged and untouchable, dancing at Velvet Underground to cover the gap between what her scholarship paid and what her mother's deadbeat boyfriend kept taking from them. On the night her boyfriend cheated on her with her biggest rival, Avery made one reckless decision. She followed a brooding stranger back to his motel room and gave him the one thing she had been saving. Her virginity. "Take off the mask. I want to see you." He had said. "A little mystery never hurt anyone, did it?" she replied. She slipped out before dawn, telling herself she would never see him again. Then she rang her best friend, Jade's doorbell and he answered the door. Liam Harrington was Jade's new stepbrother, who she hated, the transfer quarterback every girl on campus was already talking about, and the boy sitting three seats away from her in every Business Management lecture. He was also the only person in the world who knew what Avery felt like without her armour on. He just did not know her real face. Now Avery was living three lives at once. The captain, the stripper, and the girl quietly falling for the one man she was absolutely forbidden to want. And the secret that started as one reckless birthday night was growing into something big enough to burn everything she had built.
View MoreAvery's POVHis hand was still in the air when I reached into my jacket pocket and reached for my pepper spray.I had carried a pepper spray since I got into college and some random dude stalked me in my first year. It came more in handy since I started working at the club and coming home either really late or in the early hours of the morning. It had lived in my jacket pocket ever since, and I even carry a backup in my purse.I pulled it out and sprayed him directly in the face before his raised hand came anywhere near me.The sound Dean made was not a word. It was something much more animal than a word, high and sharp and followed immediately by both his hands flying up to cover his face as he staggered backward into the kitchen doorway and then down onto one knee on the hallway floor."My eyes," he was saying. "You stupid bitch! My eyes, what did you do, what did you—"I reached into my bag and pulled out my taser.It made a sound like a sharp crack when I pressed the button. I wal
Avery's POVTwo seconds.The handshake lasted exactly two seconds and I was the one who pulled away first.He let me go without comment, and for a moment after I dropped his hand, he just looked at me. Not the polite, surface-level glance of a person being introduced to someone they do not plan to think about again. Something more than that. His eyes moved over my face and down, taking their time, and when they came back up to meet mine there was an obvious ‘I-like-what-I-see’ look he had. I held his gaze and said nothing and gave a neutral expression and told myself my pulse was doing that because of the previous night's memory, not because of him in particular.Then he cleared his throat and turned to Jade."Is there a gym near here?" he said. "I had a look online last night but couldn't find anything close by.""Mercer Street," Jade said. "It's ten minutes away if you're driving."She said it the way she said things to people she had decided she was going to be polite to and nothi
Avery's POV"I was wondering when you were going to pick up," Colton said.His voice was calm, without any ounce of guilt present there. He didn't even sound particularly apologetic. Just smooth and measured and rehearsed, the voice of someone who had spent the last several hours deciding exactly how he wanted to open this conversation and had landed on calm as his best option."What do you want, Colton?" I said."I want to talk. Last night turned into something it did not have to be and I think we both deserve a proper conversation instead of just silence."Jade was watching me from her chair with both eyebrows raised so high they had nearly disappeared. I held up one finger and she pressed her lips together and sat back."A proper conversation," I said."Yes. You didn't come to dinner, Avery. Do you know how long the waiting list is at Rossini's on a Friday night? I have been on it for three weeks. Three weeks of planning that birthday dinner and you just vanished without a call or
Avery's POVI couldn't move.I just stood there on the front step staring at him like an absolute idiot, and he stared back at me with no recognition whatsoever on his face, which made sense, because the last time he saw me I had a full face of stage makeup, a black wig down to my shoulders and a red satin mask covering half my face.Right now I was standing in a hoodie with yesterday's mascara faintly under my eyes and my real hair pulled into a messy bun.To him I was nobody.To me he was the guy I had spent last night with and given my virginity to. No wonder the car was familiar. I went in it last night with him to the motel."Hey." He leaned one arm against the door frame, easy and relaxed. "Can I help you?"His voice. The same voice. Low and warm and completely unbothered.I opened my mouth and absolutely nothing came out."She's with me!"Jade appeared from somewhere behind him, grabbed him by the shoulder and physically moved him out of the doorway like he was a piece of furni
Welcome to GoodNovel world of fiction. If you like this novel, or you are an idealist hoping to explore a perfect world, and also want to become an original novel author online to increase income, you can join our family to read or create various types of books, such as romance novel, epic reading, werewolf novel, fantasy novel, history novel and so on. If you are a reader, high quality novels can be selected here. If you are an author, you can obtain more inspiration from others to create more brilliant works, what's more, your works on our platform will catch more attention and win more admiration from readers.