15 Days Babysitting For My Star Quarterback Bully
My smile dies the second the door swings open. Gasping, I stumble back as if burned by the deep scowl aimed at me.
“You!” I whisper, and at the same time, my arch-enemy’s scowl morphs into a sinister smile.
Tyler Brooks raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you’ve added stalking to your nerdy tendencies,” he finally says, his deep voice causing me to shiver.
I feel cold sweat break across my forehead, but I curl my fingers tighter around the strap of my purse. “I’m here to… for… um…”
Tyler snorts, seemingly taking pleasure in my embarrassment. “What are you doing here, Garcia?”
***
Lila Garcia thought her life couldn’t get any worse as the infamous nerd of Princeton High, constantly bullied by the jocks. But when Tyler Brooks’ parents leave town and they need someone to watch his younger siblings, Lila is roped into babysitting duty.
Tyler has always been a jerk to her since day one, but now Lila’s stuck in his world and seeing him as more than just an arrogant football star. In close quarters, Lila learns that Tyler has secrets, and that he isn’t the guy she pegged him to be.
As her feelings start to change, and the lines between love and hate blur, Lila must decide if this new version of Tyler is worth trusting, or if she’s just another target in his game.
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Chapter: Chapter 112Tyler’s POV Football scouts still haven’t called, but I’ve pretty much given up on that happening anymore. Yet, despite the fact that my future hasn’t magically sorted itself out, I feel like I can breathe for the first time in a long time. Jake and I finally talked, and when I told Lila everything, she didn’t look at me differently. The weight of guilt I’ve been carrying around for years feels a lot lighter now, and it makes walking into the house easier. It’s unusually quiet when I walk inside, and then I hear laughter coming from the backyard. I drop my overnight bag at the foyer, follow the sound, and find Mom kneeling beside a flowerbed while the twins chase each other through the grass. She looks up when she hears me. “There he is.” A smile immediately spreads across my face. “Hey.” The twins practically launch themselves at me, and I barely have time to brace myself before they’re hanging off my arms. “Tyler!” “You’re back!” “Is Lila here too?” Lucas doesn’t waste tim
Last Updated: 2026-06-30
Chapter: Chapter 111I should feel like things are finally falling into place. After all, the school trip is over, and with it is Tyler and Jake’s long-standing beef. Northbridge has also officially confirmed the details of my scholarship while we were away. Yet, the knot sitting in my chest as our bus rolls into the school parking lot doesn’t ease up. Maybe it’s because my mother has barely answered my texts all weekend, and the last time we’d spoken, she’d been furious about Northbridge. Or maybe it’s simply because life has taught me that every time something good happens, something else isn’t far behind to ruin it. Honestly, all I can think about is getting home and collapsing into bed. I feel like I’ve lived an entire month in forty-eight hours. Tyler’s lips softly brush my ear as he whispers, “You’re overthinking again, aren’t you?” I glance over at him, cheeks warming. “No, I’m not.” “Liar.” A smile tugs at my lips despite myself, but it doesn’t ease the feeling of dread growing by sec
Last Updated: 2026-06-30
Chapter: Chapter 110Tyler’s POVThe room Ms. Teagues forces me and Jake in is barely bigger than a closet.She points between the two of us. “You two are staying in here until you can communicate like adults and figure out your issues,” she says, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’m serious. If I come back in an hour and you two are still trying to kill each other, I’ll make sure neither of you sees graduation.”I’m too exhausted to argue, my knuckles and jaw hurt, and judging by the split in Jake’s lip, he isn’t doing much better.The door shuts behind us with a loud click after Ms. Teagues leaves, and neither of us moves for a while.Jake drops into one of the chairs surrounding the small table in the center of the room while I remain standing by the window. Outside, I can see students moving between buildings as the rest of the trip continues without us. Meanwhile we’re trapped in a room like angry children.Somewhere out there, Lila was probably worried sick. And the t
Last Updated: 2026-06-24
Chapter: Chapter 109The class tour starts almost immediately after we settle into our destination, though “tour” feels generous for what is mostly Ms. Teagues talking, while seniors scatter in every direction like they’ve already mentally checked out.Tyler stays right beside me, close enough that his shoulder keeps brushing mine as we walk. The problem is, I can’t enjoy it.Not with the way everyone keeps whispering.Their voices follow us through the paths between the old buildings and through the courtyards, even as Ms. Teagues explains the historical significance of the town.I glance up at Tyler more than once, and each time, he looks calm. If I didn’t know him, I’d think none of it is reaching him. But I feel the tension coiled under his skin, even when his face doesn’t show it.At some point, his hand finds mine, and he laces our fingers together without looking at me. We’re halfway through the tour when I see Jake.He’s walking with a few students behind us, but his
Last Updated: 2026-06-24
Chapter: Chapter 108The bus is already half full by the time I climb aboard.Students crowd the seats in noisy clusters, backpacks spilling into aisles and music leaking from someone’s speaker despite the teachers repeatedly telling them to turn it off.The atmosphere should feel exciting. It’s our senior trip, one of the last big things we’ll do together before graduation.Instead, all I can hear are whispers.“…can’t believe Texas picked Jake…”“…thought Tyler had it locked down…”“…did you see the post?”“…he played like shit; I’m not surprised…”I tighten my grip on my backpack strap, my gaze searching the bus.Eventually, I find Tyler near the middle. And somehow, despite everything, he’s smiling. The sight eases some of the tension in my chest.His face lights up when he sees me. “There she is, my favorite passenger.”I roll my eyes automatically. “And how many passengers have you met today?”“Only one that matters.”Heat creeps into my che
Last Updated: 2026-06-23
Chapter: Chapter 107Tyler’s POVI never thought gardening would become part of my weekly routine. Yet here I am, kneeling and covered in dirt while holding a trowel.“You’re doing it wrong,” Mom says, standing over me with her hands on her hips.“You’ve said that six times.”“Because you’ve done it wrong six times.”“I play football, Mom. I’m not supposed to know how flowers work.”Mom rolls her eyes. “The flowers don’t know that.”I snort.Somewhere behind us, the twins are chasing each other around the backyard despite Mom’s earlier attempts to convince them not to use garden hoses as weapons. The whole scene is ridiculously normal, which is nice, especially after the last few weeks.Mom crouches beside me and starts rearranging the flowers I’d apparently planted incorrectly. “You know,” she says, brushing dirt from her hands, “your future wife will appreciate this.”I groan. “Mom.”“What? You have a girlfriend now.”Heat creeps into my face, which
Last Updated: 2026-06-23
5 Years Later, I Returned With His Heirs
Five years ago, I entered a marriage of convenience with the most powerful man in Z City to escape a family determined to control my life. I believed it was a transaction, a protection in exchange for my name.
I never expected to fall in love.
And I never expected to leave.
When misunderstandings, silence, and the shadow of his past shattered what we built, I signed the divorce papers and disappeared, carrying a secret he was never meant to know.
Now I’m back.
Stronger. Independent. And no longer alone.
The man I once walked away from has discovered the truth: the twins at my side are his heirs. He wants answers. He wants his children. And he wants the woman he lost back in his life.
But love born from power and deception does not earn forgiveness easily. As inheritance battles erupt, old truths surface, and control gives way to consequence, I must decide whether the man who once broke my trust deserves a second chance.
This time, I’m not choosing survival.
I’m choosing freely, on my own terms.
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Chapter: This TimeMaraJune. A Saturday. The park near Kensington Academy.Nothing scheduled. Nothing due.I noticed that absence, the way I had been noticing it for the past several months, with the recognition of someone who had spent fourteen months of Saturdays tracking filings and deadlines and the next move in a sustained campaign, and who had arrived, without ceremony, at Saturdays that were what they were.The boys had been here since nine. Junior had a field map of the park that had been revised four times since January and was currently in its fifth iteration, incorporating a newly identified formation in the northeast corner that he'd been building toward documenting for three weeks. Billy had the notebook, the current one, which had been updated to include a new section he'd titled, with characteristic precision, ongoing observations, category: stability.Luke had arrived at nine-fourteen. I had noted the time without noting that I had noted it. Billy had noted it prop
Last Updated: 2026-06-15
Chapter: A LegacyMaraMay. The eastern waterfront building.We'd been in it for three weeks. Junior had, as projected, established a geological survey station in the second bedroom within forty-eight hours of moving in. Billy had chosen the room with the city view and had spent the first evening at the window with the notebook, documenting what he could see and what it told him about the neighborhood's composition.On the first Thursday in the new building, Luke arrived at four o'clock.He had a key.He'd had a key since the beginning. Not a question asked or a ceremony made, just a key, because the building was his and because we were choosing something that didn't require ceremony to be real.He let himself in.Junior's voice from the geological survey station: "HE'S HERE."Billy from his room: "I know. I heard the door."Luke in the entrance: "Hello."The specific ordinary of it.I was at the desk reviewing the Hargreaves quarterly.He came to the k
Last Updated: 2026-06-15
Chapter: Always Their Choice LukeApril. The eastern waterfront.The corner unit on the fourth floor was empty when Mara came to see it. Not staged, not prepared. Just empty with the unfurnished quality of a space that had been a site office and still smelled slightly of construction documentation.She walked through it without saying anything.The main room. The kitchen. The two bedrooms, described in the original build as guest rooms, were both understood by both of us, without discussion, to be not guest rooms.She stood at the window in the main room.The eastern waterfront below. The Harborview site is visible to the south. The park was seven minutes away, as advertised. The academy was to the north."The park," she said."Yes," I said."Junior will declare this optimal," she said."He already has," I said. "I mentioned the address in a geological correspondence context and he sent back a three-paragraph assessment of the location's fieldwork potential."She held
Last Updated: 2026-06-14
Chapter: No More ContractsMaraMarch. One month.I had been thinking about it since the coffee on Meridian Street. The question he'd asked without making it more than it was. What does home look like when you choose it?I'd been thinking about it and simultaneously working on the Hargreaves quarterly, managing the Pryce cooperation documentation, taking Billy to the logic competition at the academy and watching Junior present the Iceland geological findings to his class for the third time in four months because his teacher had, at that point, accepted that Junior had a presentation and was going to give it whenever geology felt relevant.I'd been thinking about it alongside all of that.The original co-parenting framework was on my desk on a Thursday morning in March. Not the revised version. I had pulled the original. The one I had built in London. The one with the forty-eight-hour venue approval requirement, the no-unscheduled-contact provision, and the decision-making authority exclusi
Last Updated: 2026-06-14
Chapter: The Life They Built LukeJanuary. The Hargreaves dinner.The board chair hosted it at his club with twenty people, the kind of evening that existed at the intersection of professional and personal, where significant things were acknowledged without being dwelt upon.Mara was beside me.Not at my side as an arrangement or a strategic positioning. Simply beside me, the way she'd been beside me at the Whitfield dinner in October and the board session in November and the courthouse steps in the week after the contempt hearing.The board chair gave a toast. Short, specific, the language of a man who understood that what had been accomplished was significant and didn't need embellishment.He referred to Mara as one of the most capable commercial minds I've encountered in this industry.He referred to me as the kind of institutional partner whose reliability has transformed the way we think about the Hargreaves portfolio's development strategy.He referred to us jointly, briefl
Last Updated: 2026-06-13
Chapter: Home MaraDecember. The eastern waterfront building.I had stopped calling it the eastern waterfront building sometime in November. Before we'd moved in. I had started calling it the building, which was a small word for what it had become in the weeks between Luke asking his question on Meridian Street and us standing in an empty corner unit watching the city through the window.Now I call it home.Without the eastern waterfront part. Without the building part. Just home.The boys had called it home before I did.Junior had called it home the day we visited with the empty rooms, and he'd identified the second bedroom's fieldwork potential. Billy had called it home after the first night, recording it in the notebook as 'new address'. feels correct.Thursday evening in December.Luke is at the kitchen table with the Harborview phase two documentation. Junior is at the other end with the geological notebook and the diagram for his end-of-term science presenta
Last Updated: 2026-06-13
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