Cirrus@Austlit

'Xavier

'This is not a love story.

'I hate you not for who you are, but what you represent.

'I’m the whispers in the darkness you can’t quite hear.

'I’m the unease that can’t be explained, but won’t go away.

'I’m your worst nightmare come to life.

'I’m the filthy rich guy who’s coming for revenge.

'Everything you’ve ever had.

'Everything you hold dear.

'I won’t stop until I break you.

'Rocky

'You were once my savior.

'Now you’re my bully.

'I’m the girl from the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks.

'No match for your money, your might, or your wrath.

'But I’m not going down without a fight.

'When I go, I’ll take you with me.

'Because we’re more alike than you want to admit.

'And more connected than you know.

'This is not a love story.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Drew

'I hate the lies you tell.

'For as long as I could remember, everything in my world had been fake. The happy nuclear family. The loving parents. The close father-son relationship. The respectable family business. All lies. I’d had it with the pretense and the show, but I was trapped on a dizzying merry-go-round of deception, and I couldn’t get off.

'So when she was thrown unexpectedly into my path, and I discovered she was just another fake, I needed to make her pay. Little did I know, the deceit ran deeper than I could have imagined, and nothing was as it seemed.

'Kik

'I tell the lies I hate.

'I hated the lies and the pretense, but if I was going to achieve what I wanted in life, they were a necessary evil. Truth was, I’d mostly made peace with the idea. What I was doing was a means to an end, and the end definitely justified the means. Besides, it wasn’t forever—nothing ever was.

'Everybody had to do what they had to do, right? I could live with that. Kinda. Sorta. Maybe. At least I thought I could until he came bursting into my life, and was determined to tear down everything I’d worked so hard to build.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Bear

'Sshh...can you keep a secret?

'If you’re hiding in the dark,

'How long ‘til you leak it?

'If you really must tell all

'How far can we sweep it?

'If you lay down the gauntlet

'Can you make us leap it?

'You know who we are

'You know what we did

'Will you keep it to yourself

'Or will you lift the lid?

'Sshh...can you keep a secret?

'Honey

'Psst…want to know a secret?

'It’s big, it’s bad, it’s ugly

'And I don’t think I can keep it

'If I tell and you find out

'Your wrath, you will heap it

'The tide will turn, you will learn

'And now you shall reap it

'I know who you are

'I know what you did

'Will I keep it to myself

'Or will I lift the lid

'Psst…want to know a secret?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.