 by Nikki Sloane.jpg)
Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 114337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Which is fine. This frat boy may be irritatingly hot, all carved muscle with a deceptively wholesome smile, but that’s irrelevant. He’s a Sig.
When I catch his fraternity cheating at the Greek Week tournament, he denies it—causing our rivalry between houses to escalate. Colin and I may have started the mud fight, but it grows into an all-out war, and ends with us expelled from our houses.
Now I’m homeless and it’s all his fault.
So, while answering an ad for a leading role at an adult film company wasn’t part of my career path, the work comes with a lot of perks. Steady salary. Accommodations close to campus. A safe place to explore my fantasies.
Except when I show up for my audition, my partner is none other than my new archenemy—Colin. And our sexual chemistry is explosive.
We hate how attracted we are to each other, and I despise that I want every scene to be with him. Because the longer we live together, the more I see he’s not who I thought he was.
This frat boy was so easy to hate . . . but what if he’s even easier to love?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
Madison
My heart beat erratically, too fast one moment and too slow the next. Sweat trickled down my back. The boy I loved was leaving, and there was nothing I could do to stop him.
I’d had plenty of chances over the summer to ask him to stay . . . but instead I’d encouraged him to go. It was a tremendous opportunity, I’d told him. Jack had been accepted into the international business program at Davidson University, which only took a handful of students each year. This would open doors and set him up with a job once he graduated.
And it included a semester abroad.
When his passport arrived last month, God, he’d been so excited. Jack had always yearned to travel, to see the world, but he’d have to do it without me. There was no way I could take a semester off when I only had three semesters of college left, and I certainly couldn’t afford to go to Germany with him.
So, even though it killed me, I pretended to be thrilled. I wasn’t going to let him give this up, and I loved him too much to hold him back. Plus, if I made him stay, eventually he’d resent me.
He had to go.
My gaze followed Jack as he wove through the line for security, his passport and plane ticket in hand. There was a curved neck pillow clipped to his backpack, and I watched it bounce with each step he took, rather than look directly at him.
Because that was too hard. Too painful.
Just the shape of him moving toward the TSA agent made my eyes blurry and my chin quiver. I’d held it together when we’d said goodbye, but my insides were made of glass—and now they were breaking.
We’ll talk every day, he’d assured me. It’s one semester. I’ll be back before you know it.
There was no way that was true.
But I’d nodded and attempted to squeeze out a smile. I didn’t want to be sad and ruin this day for him, plus I didn’t want his last memory of me to be a crumbling face, streaked with tears.
It felt like the end when he kissed me goodbye. He could swear up and down we’d be fine with five thousand miles between us, and I desperately wanted to believe . . . but I just couldn’t.
There were too many people who’d let me down in my past for me to stay optimistic. I’d learned the only promises I could count on were the ones I made to myself.
Jack handed his passport over to the agent, who waved him through after a quick evaluation. I sucked in a breath and held it as he followed the roped off section that briefly turned him back toward me.
He slowed, and alarm washed through his handsome face as he saw how stricken I must have looked.
“Madison,” he said, lifting his voice over the noise of people waiting for security. “It’s okay. Don’t cry.” He delivered a comforting smile as he began moving again. “I promise, we’ll be fine. I love you.”
I pressed my lips together, swallowed the stone in my throat, and nodded.
I wasn’t able to speak, wasn’t able to tell him I loved him, too. But at least it meant I wasn’t able to tell him not to make promises he might not be able to keep.
He held my gaze all the way until he reached the corner, lingered for a final moment, and then disappeared around it.
I stood utterly still, holding the crushed pieces of myself together. I didn’t know what else to do. How was I going to walk out of this Nashville airport, go back to the car I’d borrowed from a friend, and carry on like a small part of me hadn’t just died?
I was so in love with him.
Oblivious people moved around the busy ticketing area, hurrying to get where they were going. They were starting a journey, not ending one, and God, how I envied them. I wanted to have that excitement about what came next, instead of this crushing fear.
Jack was going to come back a changed man; that much I was sure of.
And I dreaded I wouldn’t fit into his new life when he returned.
ONE
Madison
Dark clouds loomed on the horizon, and Jenn—my sorority little sister—looked worried.
“They said it wasn’t supposed to rain today,” she muttered as she glanced down at her pristine sneakers.
I kept my tone light. “We tried to warn you.”
It was April, which meant spring showers, and it had rained every day this week. My gaze shifted from her to the obstacle course in front of us, where brown puddles dotted the field. Had there ever been grass on it? It was all dirt and mud now.
Every time Lambda Theta Chi had made it to the finals and competed for the Fidelity Cup, the race had been a slog. If anything, the muck had made the final race more fun. In our house, there were pictures in the front hall from previous years where the sisters were cover head-to-toe in mud.