CHAPTER 24
Jasper sat in his office, staring at nothing, slowly tracing the edge of his desk with his fingertips. He had fifteen minutes until his next appointment, yet his thoughts kept dragging him back to places he’d spent years refusing to revisit.
Nina.
Goddamn her.
He hadn’t thought about her in years.
Correction—he’d trained himself not to. Locked those memories in the darkest corner of his mind and thrown away the key.
But the second he’d seen her again… everything he’d buried clawed its way back up like something rotten under the floorboards.
That night, looking at her, seeing the shock in her eyes, the fear, the anger—he didn’t see the woman she’d become.
He saw that girl.
The one he’d once—
Jasper pushed away from the desk so abruptly his chair rolled back and hit the wall. He paced behind the exam table, irritation coiling tighter with each step.
Twenty-two years ago he’d been a fool.
No—an absolute idiot.
He’d believed in love. In loyalty. In honesty.
He thought he’d found the girl. He’d changed for her, softened for her.
Tried becoming the man she deserved. She’d been a sweet freshman—shy, innocent, claiming she was saving herself for someone special.
And he’d been patient. Gentle. Not pushing. Ready to wait as long as she needed.
Until one stupid, ordinary afternoon, he happened to learn the truth.
She’d lived in the dorms then. He’d decided to surprise her. Her roommate told him she was in the shared kitchen. He walked down the hall, pushed the door halfway open… and froze when he heard a voice he knew by heart.
“Jasper?” Mary had laughed. “Come on, Ian, I don’t need him. You know that.”
He stood in the doorway, pulse slamming in his ears.
“I’m only with him because it’s convenient,” she continued, her tone annoyingly casual. “But I love you.”
His mind refused to process the words.
“I just get jealous,” the guy—Ian—murmured. “He has money. He has a future. He’s useful.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Let me squeeze as much out of him as possible, then I’ll drop him.”
Something inside him snapped at the sound—quiet, sharp, sickening.
“I mean, I don’t even let him touch me.” Mary laughed softly. “He still thinks he’ll be my first.”
His throat went dry.
“He’s got connections, status, all that crap. Useful assets. You don’t mind our little ‘platonic phase,’ right?”
He didn’t remember walking. Didn’t remember closing the kitchen door behind him. One second he was frozen at the threshold, and the next he was standing in front of them, staring at the girl he thought he knew.
“What do you mean—‘useful,’ Mary?” he asked, voice low. “What the hell is going on?”
She whipped around, eyes widening.
“Jas… Jasper—” Her voice softened instantly, slipping into the tone she always used when she wanted something. Sweet. Innocent. Manipulative.
He heard every layer this time. Every lie.
“You used me?” he said.
She shook her head quickly, stepping toward him.
“No, that’s not—baby, you misunderstood—”
His stomach twisted.
Where was the shy, blushing girl who used to hide behind textbooks? Where was the student who clung to his every word, who let him teach her to drive, who looked at him like he hung the damn moon?
She never existed.
There was only this girl.
The girl who looked at him now with fear, not love. The one who laughed with another man, calling him kitten, talking about how to drain Jasper dry before leaving him behind like a chewed-up piece of gum.
Mary reached for him again.
“You’re overreacting,” she whispered urgently. “Just let me expla—”
“I understood everything just fine.”
He didn’t raise his voice. That made her flinch even more. She grabbed his arm, frantic.
“Jasper, please, just listen to me—”
“Don’t.” He stepped out of her reach. “Don’t touch me.”
Her boyfriend straightened, but Jasper barely spared him a glance. Putting his fist through the guy’s skull would’ve been easy. Too easy. But he refused to give either of them the satisfaction of seeing how deeply they’d managed to cut him.
Mary’s eyes filled with tears instantly—fast, theatrical.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Shut up.”
Jasper just turned around and walked away.
And then he started falling. A long, drawn-out collapse. Fights, alcohol, women who came to him on their own, never asking for love or loyalty. No more “sweet freshmen,” no more “I’ll wait as long as you need.” He didn’t wait anymore. He took.
The Jasper who’d believed in love died that day at the damn dorm door. Something inside him snapped clean.
The hatred never left. And then he saw Nina.
It had been about a week since he’d learned the truth about Mary, when he showed up at that party. The moment he got out of the car, he slammed his fist into the face of the first bastard who dared look at him.
Then he got drunk out of his mind. Every new glass of whiskey ground down what little control he had left. Mary’s voice still echoed in his skull:
“I don’t even let him touch me. He still thinks he’ll be my first.”
And then he saw a shy girl. She kept sneaking embarrassed glances his way all evening. Didn’t talk to anyone. Stood in a corner, her whole posture saying she didn’t belong in that crowd.
And the first thought that punched him in the head—she looked like Mary.
The same pure eyes. The same naive gaze. The same “innocence” that turned out to be a filthy lie.
She felt like Mary’s copy, which meant she was just as fake. He didn’t see differences. Didn’t see reality. Only the betrayal gnawing at his chest. He poured all his disappointment and rage onto her.
That night, Jasper wasn’t himself. He didn’t remember clearly, but he was pretty sure he and the guys had taken something before they arrived. He did whatever he could to numb the pain—and paid for it.
He grabbed her roughly, dragged her into a room, slammed the door shut. Wanted to prove to himself she wasn’t as pure as she looked. That she was just like her—the girl he’d destroyed himself over.
That they were all the same.
He didn’t hear her words. Didn’t feel her resisting. He heard only his own madness. His thoughts melted into a single chaotic rush.
He didn’t remember leaving the room. Or getting home. Then morning came, and he felt a sharp jolt.
He crashed off the bed with a loud thud, barely catching himself with his hands. His head throbbed, his body felt hollow, still under whatever he’d taken the night before.
“Get up,” his father growled, towering over him.
Jasper blinked several times, struggling to understand what was happening. Every sound felt like it could split his skull.
“What the hell…?” he rasped.
“Get up, Jasper!” His father was practically boiling. “Do you even realize what you’ve done?! If I lose my position because of you, I’ll send you to a construction site to haul stone. You’ll live in a trailer and piss in an outdoor toilet.”
Jasper narrowed his eyes irritably.
“What are you even talking about?”
His father stepped closer, and for the first time in Jasper’s life, he saw something more than anger in his eyes.
Rage.
Murderous rage. His father had been furious with him many times, but never like this.
“A girl, Jasper. She’s in the hospital.”
He blinked. His heart lurched.
“What?”
“You were so wasted you don’t remember what you did? I just got the report: some girl is in the hospital, giving her statement against you right now. You don’t get enough adrenaline? Not enough girls throwing themselves at you? Why the hell did you even touch this one?”
Jasper shook his head.
“That’s… bullshit.”
A cold ripple crept down his spine, but he wouldn’t let himself stop to think.
“Someone’s setting us up.” His voice was hoarse, his throat dry. “She just wants money.”
“She’s in the hospital,” his father repeated heavily. “The medical exam is done. And she says you—”
“Crap!”
He snapped, waving it off. This couldn’t be real. Anger flared in his chest.
“Another gold-digger, that’s all!” He let out a bitter laugh. Jesus, who’d even been with him last night?
His father didn’t speak, but his stare said everything. He didn’t believe his son. How could he not? Jasper tried to pull himself together.
“I’m taking a shower. Then I’ll sort it out. It’s just a shakedown.”
He turned and walked into the bathroom. Stared at himself in the mirror and smirked. Yeah, he needed to quit this crap. Who knew what Tyler had slipped him last night?
But when he pulled off his underwear, his eyes dropped down.
Dried blood. Not much, but enough to make his heart plummet.
Something clicked inside him. Flash fragments of memory burst before his eyes.
Dim light.
The girl.
Crying? Or just the noise in his head.
A voice.
A hoarse: “No.”
The world collapsed.
He gripped the sink, fingers digging into the ceramic.
No.
No.
No.
He couldn’t have.
He couldn’t.
His whole body shook. A shiver crawled through him, not from cold but from the terror swallowing him whole.
His stomach twisted painfully. He looked at his reflection. The man in the mirror wasn’t him.
It was a monster who hadn’t spared an innocent girl.
And the only thing he felt was an icy, corrosive disgust directed entirely at himself.