Page 66 of Don't Date Your Nemesis

“Wait, but Blake, we have to⁠—”

“Deepika, listen to me. Your career is just taking off, and you don’t need this sort of drama. End it now, have a clean break, so we can play the sympathetic victim angle.”

I thought about the article, and I knew something felt off.

I thought about the man who defended me to Yash. Who carried me to bed. Who made me come so hard that I forgot my own name.

This didn’t fit.

Yes, he was a jerk with a God complex, but not a complete jerk.

“Let me think about it,” I said.

“Don’t think too long. The longer you wait, the worse it looks.”

She hung up.

A note on the kitchen counter said,

‘Training. Back by 2. Don’t eat all the cereal.’

So, that meant Liam had left for practice early in the morning, and he would be bombarded while he was… shit. It would have been hard for him to focus.

I waited on the couch, phone in hand, scrolling through increasingly terrible takes on Twitter.

The door opened, and I saw him.

Liam looked exhausted, his hair wet from the pool, shoulders slumped, and dark circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept.

“Hey.”

“I saw the article,” I said as a greeting.

He nodded slowly and set his bag down. “Yeah. Look, you don’t have to pretend anymore. I’ll tell everyone we broke off our engagement and save your reputation.”

I frowned. This wasn’t like him.

“What actually happened?” I asked. “What’s the actual story behind it?”

He looked surprised. “You want to know?”

“Of course I do.”

He moved to the couch, sitting beside me but leaving a distance between us. I pursed my lips at the distance. It was as if he was bracing for me not to believe him.

“Sofia approached me at an Olympic after-party two years ago. She was dating my teammate, Joshua. He’s a good guy, and we had trained together for years.” He ran a hand through his damp hair. “She came on to me, but I rejected her. Multiple times, I told her I wasn’t interested, that she had a boyfriend, and that this was inappropriate.”

“And?”

“She got angry and told Joshua that I had pursued her and that I wouldn't leave her alone.” His jaw clenched. “Joshua believed her. We have since made up, and he knows the truth now, but… you know what happened.”

He pulled out his phone, showing me the full text thread. The messages the tabloid had published were there, but so were the ones they had conveniently cut out.

You looked beautiful tonight, but I’m not interested in pursuing anything. You have a boyfriend.

Can we talk privately? I want to make sure we’re clear that this isn’t happening.

Oh god. Context changed everything.