Page 145
My stomach turned.
Was it all planned?
Some scheme?
Did she sit in some boardroom somewhere, manufacturing a story?
Was I just… content?
A storyline?
Did they script her arguments? Clip and splice it all together and push it out online until it caught fire?
Just views, just streams, just clickbait and comments?
And what of her?
Maggie.
Was any of that real?
The way she leaned in when I spoke, the way her gaze lingered just a second too long, the way her eyes sparked when she pushed back at something I said that she disagreed with.
The way she—
My jaw tightened.
The way she melted into my touch.
That hadn’t been strategy. It couldn’t have been. You couldn’t fake that. The hitch of breath, the way her fingers curled into my shirt, into my hair, like she was slipping away and needed something to hold onto.
Unless she could.
Unless it was all just another perfect performance.
One I was foolish enough to fall for.
Was that all part of the plan too?
A hollow laugh scraped its way out of my throat.
Did it even matter if it was?
The point was that it felt real.
That was the problem.
It felt real when she said my name like it meant something.
It felt real when she looked at me like she looked at me, with a soft sort of wonder in her honey eyes.
It felt real that I started to forget when I was with her, all the reasons I didn’t let people get close.
My chest constricted, something ugly and fragile tangling together beneath my ribs.
Real or not, it got in.
She got in.
