Students in Bellwood University crossed paths as the easy noise of the mid-morning filled the air. The rustle of the wind stirred along the brick walls of the campus, with the sounds of an occasional clang of a far-off maintenance cart. Maya spotted him.
Reclined against one of the polished stone benches like he'd been dropped from a fashion campaign into reality, was Logan. His shirt sleeves were pulled up, showing forearms that were too elegant to be fair, his head tipped back in a slow laugh at something one of his friends said. He looked too charming and too damn smug.
Heat climbed Maya's spine like an electric wire. Then he saw her.
Of course, he saw her.
His mouth curved, not quite a smile more like a warning dressed as invitation.
Maya didn't pause, she walked straight over, her boots echoing over the paving stones. One of Logan's friends, a tall guy with surfer hair and the attention span of a fruit fly, grinned at her like she was part of the entertainment.
"Hey, Maya, right?" he said.
"Do you need a minute?" Logan asked, like he was already amused by whatever storm she'd brought.
"No, I need all of them." Her eyes never left Logan's.
He straightened lazily, his eyes glittering. "Well, let's not give the public a show."
Before she could retort, his hand slipped around her elbow, not forcefully, but firmly and confident, like he knew she'd let him, and he guided her away from his crowd, past the main courtyard, down one of the narrow garden paths that looped behind the campus.
The moment they were alone, Maya pulled her arm free, whirling on him.
"You played me," she snapped.
Logan leaned against a low stone wall, the wind teasing a strand of his blonde hair across his brow. "You'll have to be more specific," he said smoothly.
"Don't," she hissed. "Don't stand there and act like this is just one of your games. I went to see Professor Laird yesterday. He showed me your essay, Logan. Your essay. It wasn't passable. It wasn't even just good. It was brilliant."
Logan didn't even move.
"I've read your earlier submissions, remember?" Maya went on, pacing now, with a furious energy bubbling under her skin. "You weren't struggling. You were faking it. The whole thing, the dumb rich boy routine, the fumbling through metaphors, it was all an act."
He tilted his head slightly. "Is this the part where you give me a gold star for effort?"
"I let you in," she said, vibrating with restrained fury, "I ignored every instinct. Every warning. I thought maybe, maybe you just needed help. That you wanted to do better. But no. You wanted a toy. A challenge. Some kind of twisted entertainment."
Still, he watched her quietly. That maddening expression on his face like he was cataloguing every word but offering nothing back.
"Say something," she demanded.
He shifted at last, like he'd only now decided to speak. "You looked like you needed something to shake you," he said softly.
Then Maya slowly blinked, "Excuse me?"
"You walk through this campus like you're made of armor. Like nothing touches you. Focused. Cold. Brilliant, sure but untouched." He stepped closer, from where he was leaning. "I didn't fake being dumb because I wanted to waste your time, Maya. I wanted to see if anything could crack the perfect little mask you wear."
She stared at him, burning with resentment, "So this was your experiment? Some psychological game?"
He didn't answer.
"That essay wasn't just good, Logan. It was you. You're not an idiot. You knew exactly what you were doing."
He looked at her-then really looked at her. No smirking, no distance, just a shadow of something hidden behind his eyes.
"I wanted you to see me," he said finally.
Her laugh cracked out, in half-disbelief, like she was heartbroken. "So you lied. You manipulated me. You made me question my own instincts. For what? To make a point?"
"You see me now, don't you?"
She stepped back. "Yeah. I do. And I don't like what I see."
But even as she said it, the guilt coiled inside her stomach. The memory of that first spark, those loaded tutoring sessions, the quiet intensity that always made her toes curl inside her boots.
Logan said nothing. His gaze just stayed locked on her.
And it was that infuriating calm, that finally broke her. She spun on her heel and walked away, each step sharper than the last. Behind her, the garden was silent but she could still feel him watching and worse, she wanted to look back.
Her heart thundered like it was trying to break free from the fortress, she had built brick by brick. She didn't care that Logan wasn't following. She didn't care that she could still feel his gaze pressing into her spine.
She didn't-
"Maya."
His voice was rougher than she had ever heard it, catching the thoughts in slow motion that were running in her mind. A breath, a thread, then the sound of his footsteps felt fast and urgent.
She turned, just in time for his hand to catch his arm. Her pulse skidded. With a need that came off him like heat.
"Don't go."
His eyes weren't the usual cool shade of calculating. They burned now, hot and almost desperate. It was the first time she had seen him like this.
"Let go of me," she said, thought it came out less sharp than she meant it.
But he didn't.
Instead, he stepped in, closing the distance with a hunger that stole the breath from her lungs. His hand, still holding her arm, slid lower until his fingers brushed against her wrist, soft, reverent, like touching her anchored him.
"I wasn't going to say it, or it may have sounded unserious when I hinted at it," he murmured with a voice just above a whisper. "But you're walking away like none of this anything, and I can't let you believe that."
Maya's world narrowed to the man in front of her.
"Then tell me the truth," she challenged through her voice trembling. "All of it."
He stared at her like it hurt to look.
"I played dumb," he admitted. "Because it was the only way to get close to you."
She was stunned. Words caught like thorns in her throat. "You...what?"
"I saw you that first day in Laird's class," he said. "You were smart, beautiful and so controlled. And I knew the only way you'd even look at me, was if you thought I needed something only you could give. I mean it was a mistake though, I was in that class by accident."
She stared at him like the floor had dropped beneath her. Her heartbeat wasn't just fast, it was erratic. Hope and anger warred inside her.
"You made me feel like a fool," she whispered. "And now you expect me to believe this was...what? Romantic?"
"No." He took another step forward. "I expect you to believe I'm a mess. That I don't know how to ask for what I want without screwing it up. I do understand literature, Maya. I do. But not all of it."
She tilted her head. "What part?"
His lie came smoothly but his eyes betrayed him.
"Poetry," he said. "I can't grasp it. It's abstract. I fake my way through. And I was terrified you'd laugh, or worse, look at me like I wasn't worth your time."
Maya's brows furrowed, "poetry?"
He nodded. "You love it. It's the way you talk about it, like it's a ;language of the soul. I couldn't fake that. So I didn't try. I just wanted a reason to be around you."
And damn him, she believed it. Or part of her did. Maybe the part that wanted to.
She looked away, her breath catching in her throat. "You still manipulated me."
"I did," he admitted. "And I'll spend the rest of this tutoring thing proving that not everything was a lie."
Then slowly, she pulled her wrist from his grasp.
He let her go.
She stared at him for a long moment, but not with cold eyes, "I'm still pissed at you."
A ghost of smile touched his lips. "I'd be worried if you weren't."
"But we'll finish what we started," she turned to go, then paused. "And you better start brushing up on your poetry. We're doing Whitman next."
He let out a soft laugh, his sound breathless with relief. "I'll do my best."
Then Maya walked away without storming, but with a weight behind each step she hadn't carried before. Logan didn't follow her this time.
But as she watched her go, he felt relieved.
He hadn't told her the truth. Not all of it. But it had been enough for now.