The Revenge Pact (Kings of Football #1)(74)

He lets out a shuddering breath, his head in my neck as he gasps. “Anastasia. Help me. I lov—” His phone rings, and he looks away from me to the ground, his eyes shutting. “Fuck me.”

I know the name on the screen.

He pulls back, chest heaving as he sits on his haunches. He scrubs his face as storm clouds color his eyes. “Anastasia,” he says in a tortured voice. “That’s him.”

“I know.”

“This can’t… We have to stop…”—he sucks in air—“…this insanity. Jesus. I’m sorry.” He grimaces as he stands and sweeps his shirt over his head then zips his jeans.

I sit up, watching as he paces the rooftop. I snap up my sweater and slip it on. My hands shake. A bad feeling grows in my gut as I stand.

He doesn’t look at me, his feet eating up the ground. “Fuck. Fuck. Yes, okay, okay, I told Donovan what to say in the note that night. I did, I did, and I’m sorry I can’t go back and fix it. I dropped my pen to get a feel for you, to find an angle, and then, you, God, I don’t know, you were so perfect for me, but—”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re the author of my note, and I won’t burn it like I planned. We’ll start fresh—”

“No.” He shakes his head. “We shouldn’t have come up here. Don’t you see? Donovan is calling me right now.” He snatches up the phone and scrolls through the messages, his lips compressing in a hard line.

“Maybe he just wants you to pick up some beer on the way to the house.” My words are sharp.

River shakes his head, still not looking at me. “He wants to talk about you. He’s been asking me if he made a mistake—shit, he wants me to talk to you for him…” He pulls at his hair. “You’re what he really wants, and I can’t believe he broke up with you, and how it happened haunts me—”

“We were over this past summer—”

It’s like he doesn’t hear me. “You love him!”

“Then why am I here? With you?”

His eyes widen.

“And his parents? The bracelet? Harper? The pin? You think I can accept that kind of treatment from someone? I have pride, River.”

He groans. “If you love people, you work it out! I’m the bad guy who’s messing around with you! I’m the friend moving in on his girl!” He heaves out a breath then scrubs his face. “Ana. God. Ana, I have to tell you something.”

He called me Ana! Again.

“What?” I snap.

He covers his face for a moment, drops his hands. “I told him to end it with you on Friday before the party. When he came downstairs and started spewing all this shit about your past, something came over me, and… I told him to let you go. I told him to break it off, said Harper was meant to be his and he just needed space to try. I told him…” He takes a breath. “…that you’d never make him happy.”

Shock washes over me. I blink rapidly.

Silence builds as he stares at me, willing me to reply. My mouth opens. I don’t know what to say. River influenced Donovan.

I shake my head, trying to wrap my head around it.

“I’m sorry he… I didn’t think he’d do it the way he did. I didn’t even know if he would. I never dreamed it would go down like that. I’m sorry.”

I struggle to figure out how I feel about this. Am I angry? Surprised for sure. It means…it means River has high stakes in us. “Did you tell him I was a Lolita type?”

“Never, but I encouraged him to dump you. I said he was dragging out the inevitable.”

“Wow.” My mind races, trying to piece it together. “Did you somehow know about Harvard and tell Harper I didn’t get in?”

“I would never hurt you like that. I know how it is, to feel less than.” A lost look appears on his face. “He’s going to give up Harvard for you, he will, I can feel it coming.” He pauses. “I shouldn’t have brought you up here, but you and Kian, just the idea, my jealousy is out of control…fuck, fuck, fuck, I messed up. This ends here—”

“That was not the end of something.” I slip my arms into his hoodie. Not giving that up. No way, no how. It’s mine.

“The things you say… I can’t…” He stops, a muscle in his jaw clenching. “You’re too much, too soon for me. Can’t you see that what I did was wrong? Donovan listens to me.”

A harsh laugh comes from me. “Honestly? You gave him good advice. Did you have an ulterior motive? Yes,” I say.

He closes his eyes briefly, then spears me with a tormented look. “The frat is important. I’m the president. There’s a code. I can’t—”

My hands fist. I’m laying everything out, bare for him to see, and he still doesn’t get it. “I’ve always wanted you, River. You wanted me too, even though you gave me up to him—”

“He picked you, he fucking picked you, he saw you first, he wanted you, and you may think that’s stupid, but he was lonely, and I wasn’t. Then. I didn’t realize in that moment how much you’d come to mean…” He heaves out a long breath, regret lacing his words. “I helped him get you. And you fell in love with him.”

I cross my arms. He keeps bringing that up.