My Know-It-All Nemesis - Maggie Dallen Page 0,29

stood there gaping at each other.

“What was that?” I managed to sputter when at last my lungs remembered how to work.

“Sorry.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second and then ran a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…I don’t know what came over me. I just…” He exhaled harshly and tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. “You just drive me crazy sometimes.”

I touched my fingers to my lips. I drove him crazy? “I drive you crazy?” It was all I could manage, and the idea was laughable. Especially right now when I was standing there, floored and totally twisted upside down because he’d kissed me.

Miller Hardwell had kissed me. Not a big kiss—not some crazy sweet kiss or even a passionate French kiss.

Although there had been passion. Just…not the right kind. Just anger. The same anger that raged between us every other day of the year. Me wearing different clothes didn’t change that. It didn’t change anything.

I was still me, and he was still him, and we were once again at each other’s throats.

Somehow that thought had tears stinging my eyes. Ludicrous. Totally stupid. It wasn’t like I wanted Miller Hardwell to have feelings for me. I was just confused, that was all.

That was what happened when I went from dancing with my arch nemesis to fighting with him to being kissed by him…all in the course of one hour.

My head was spinning, that was all.

“Are you…are you crying?” He sounded so horrified, it might have been funny. You know, if I wasn’t verging on tears.

“No,” I snapped. “Of course not. I’m just…I’m just pissed, that’s all.”

“I said I’m sorry—”

“No.” I jabbed a finger into his chest. “You don’t get off that easy. Not this time. You don’t get to avoid a conversation by kissing me.”

“This is not a conversation,” he shot back. “This is accusations, by you, about me. And I’m pissed too, because I thought you knew me better than that. I thought…” He shook his head and thrust his hands into his hair in frustration, and I found myself dying to know what he’d been about to say.

“You thought what?” I said, some of the heat gone from my voice because curiosity was taking its place. I’d never seen this Miller—I’d never seen him so sincere about anything in my life. He was angry, sure, but beneath that was a sincerity that was disarming. Alarming, even.

“I always knew you didn’t like me, but I thought you understood me,” he said. “I thought…” He exhaled loudly in exasperation. “I thought we understood each other.”

I sniffed because…yeah, maybe he had a point. “We’re both competitive,” I said. “And we’re both over-achievers, but that’s where the similarities end.” I crossed my arms and looked around at his pool house. His pool house. “We come from different worlds.”

“Right,” he said, his voice low as he studied me. “And in my world, everything comes so easily.”

I didn’t miss the sarcasm, but I couldn’t argue with him. “Doesn’t it?”

He met my gaze steadily and for so long, I started to feel the weight of it in my chest, like I was feeling his emotions even if I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say.

“How long did it take you to study for last week’s bio quiz?” he asked.

I blinked stupidly in the face of that non sequitur. “Um, I don’t know…” I shrugged. “A couple hours?”

He let out a humorless laugh. “I studied every night for two weeks straight. After football practice and on top of the other extracurriculars.” He looked away before turning back to me. “What about your speech this week? It’s done, right?”

I furrowed my brow. Of course, it was done. I didn’t even need to answer, because he knew it.

“Of course, it’s done. I’ve been agonizing over a blank piece of paper for a week,” he said.

“What’s your point?” I asked.

His smirk lacked all humor. Instead it held a derisiveness that I hated, mainly because I felt like it was aimed at himself. “I’m saying I might have the money and the parties, but when it comes to everything else, nothing comes easily.”

I tried to hold back my scoff of disbelief, but it slipped out, and I watched his eyes darken with intensity again.

Goodness gracious, my heart sped up exponentially when he looked at me like that.

“I’m serious, Kate. You have no idea how jealous I am of you—how jealous I’ve always been.”

“You,” I repeated in blatant shock. “You have been