Page 66 of Rogue Riders Duet

I meet his gaze straight on. “I’m not your friend.”

His grin falters a little, and there’s a flicker in those too-blue eyes, like someone pulled a curtain over the sun. Fuck. I drop my gaze with a huff and dig my heels into the pedals.

I’m not here to make friends.

Friends mean giving pieces of yourself away, and I don’t have any spare pieces left.

I came here for one thing. Gold. The podium. The fucking top. And when I’ve got that, when the circuit knows my name, when Raine’s face falls in slow motion at the finish line, then I’ll disappear. That’s always been the plan.

Where I’m going, I don’t need friends.

And even if I did, whose friends would they be? Allen’s? Alaina’s?

The broken shell of a girl with a borrowed name and stitched-up identity?

Any friendships built here would be forged on a lie and wouldn’t be real, not even close. Because I’m not Alaina anymore. And I’m sure as hell not Allen.

I’m nobody.

The thought sticks like a splinter under my skin.

Nobody. God, I’m so fucking stupid.

I don’t know why I said that to Mason yesterday, like it meant something. Like I meant something to him. What was I even thinking? And why do I feel such a kinship with him? It feels like we’ve both been fucked over, and we’re in the same corner, even though he doesn’t know it.

He’s not my friend either. I don’t know him, and I shouldn’t care, but I do. I care that they treat him like shit and that he’s been made the villain when he’s not. I care that I ruined the truce we had.

I grit my teeth and shift into a harder gear, slamming my legs against the resistance and letting the burn in my thighs shove Mason’s eyes, Luc’s grin, Finn’s teasing voice, and my hurting body down into the dark.

I’m here to win.

Nothing else.

More and more women roll their bikes to the start gate, and it hits me that I could be one of them right now.

If life, or better yet, Raine, hadn’t fucked me over, I would be. I’d be lining up with the other women as myself. Instead, I’m stuck here in someone else’s skin, biting back hiccups next to Luc Delacroix and Finn Greer.

Luc flashes smiles at the women who walk past us. He’s grinning, winking, and tossing out French charm like candy. Some of the girls giggle back, one even tosses him a little wink of her own.

He’s such a horndog.

But I can’t lie to myself, not entirely. Maybe, in another life, I would’ve tried Luc out. Just for a night, just to see what all that cocky, golden-boy chaos would feel like if it were pointed at me for real.

I glance over at Finn.

But no. Even in another life, that wouldn’t be an option. No matter how hard I want it to be. Luc, though…

My eyes follow the next girl who passes us. She’s tall and appears effortlessly cool, with high cheekbones and green eyes. When Luc throws her a wink, she gives him a flirty one back.

Or maybe not.

Because even in another life, even if I were here as Alaina, I wouldn’t look like that. Not even with long hair or without being duct-taped into a skin I only half recognize behind the scars and flaws. I’m not soft and flirty, never have been. I’m not built for slow, pretty seduction.

But I sure as fuck am built for speed.

I glance at the timer screen with the time of the first female racer, then back at the crowd of men, most of them behind me on the leaderboard.

A slow smile tugs at my lips.