RUIN ME, I DARE YOU.

Viv's POV

Mason Hale pushes open the glass door of the tutoring center just as I'm seeing his name for the second time.

The first was half an hour ago, when Priya handed me his file.

MASON HALE.

Statistics: D-.

Star pitcher. Senior business major. Pro prospect. Heir to Hale Hotels.

The second time is now, with the man himself standing in front of me, a training bag slung over one shoulder and his dark-blond hair looking like he ran a hand through it once and called it good. He looks almost exactly like the picture in his file, except in person there's an ease about him that immediately makes me think: trouble.

I glance at the clock.

8:59.

"I'm not late," he says.

"Not yet."

I slide his painfully bad grade report to the center of the table.

Mason looks down at the D-minus and somehow still manages to smile.

That's the kind of student I hate dealing with most-not the ones who are struggling, but the ones who look like struggling doesn't concern them nearly enough.

I tap the grade with my pen. "Just so we're clear, you're not here because you need help with a couple of problems. Keep this up and you're going to fail Statistics."

He sits across from me, and for the first time, his expression turns a little more serious.

"That's why I asked for you."

My pen stills.

Asked for me?

So the tutoring center didn't assign him at random?

I look up.

Mason has already leaned back in his chair like he didn't just say anything unusual, but my mind immediately goes back to Priya telling me, half an hour ago, that I'd been assigned to him-and the look on her face when she said it.

Something doesn't add up.

"You know me?"

"I do now."

Cute.

I'm not interested in playing word games with him, so I open the textbook instead.

Why he picked me doesn't matter.

I just need to get him to a passing grade and move on with my life.

Because unlike Mason Hale, I don't have the luxury of failing a class.

My scholarship renewal is due in ten days, and that scholarship is pretty much the only reason I'll be able to stay here next semester. The form is sitting on my kitchen counter right now beside a stack of bills, and I don't wake up at 4:45 every morning to work at The Grind because I enjoy making coffee before sunrise.

I need the money.

And I need this tutoring job.

So how famous Mason is, how many people on campus know his name, how many girls are obsessed with him-none of that has anything to do with me.

At least, in theory.

But when I glance down at his file again, my eyes catch on his last name.

Hale.

That strange feeling comes back.

I felt it the first time Priya slid the folder across the desk. The name seems familiar somehow, and not because it's stamped all over campus or because Richard Hale sits on the board of trustees.

It feels older than that.

Like I've seen it somewhere that mattered.

I just can't remember where.

And the harder I try, the more uneasy I feel, as if there's a locked door somewhere in my memory and I know there's something behind it, but I can't get it open.

"What are you looking at?"

Mason's voice pulls me back.

I close the file.

"Trying to figure out how much work you're going to be."

One eyebrow lifts.

"And?"

"Depends how cooperative you are."

That gets a real laugh out of him.

Suddenly I understand why Delia looked so entertained last night when I told her his name and said, "Viv, you are going to hate him."

I'd just gotten home after a full day, my feet aching and the heater in our apartment making noises like it was dying. The second Delia heard "Mason Hale," she perked right up, asked if I meant the baseball player, then informed me that half the girls on campus probably thought he was gorgeous.

I didn't understand why that was relevant.

Being hot isn't going to pass Statistics for him.

And after seeing his picture, my only real impression had been that he had the kind of smile that belonged to someone who'd never checked his bank balance before deciding whether he could afford lunch.

Now that I've met him, I still think that.

What surprises me is that he isn't as careless as I expected.

I give him a few basic problems to work through, and yes, he gets plenty wrong, but he isn't clueless. Most of the mistakes come from gaps in the foundation, things he never properly fixed when they first started going wrong.

If he's willing to put in the time, this is salvageable.

That's a relief.

I don't mind students who struggle.

I mind students who do nothing and assume paying for help should magically make them smarter.

So far, Mason doesn't seem to be one of those.

"Here." I turn his paper toward him. "You don't actually misunderstand this part. You made one mistake in the previous step, and everything after that fell apart."

He studies the page for a moment.

"Sounds a lot like my life."

I look at him.

"If your whole life can be traced back to one bad calculation, you're probably doing better than most people."

He goes quiet for half a second, and some of the humor leaves his face.

I don't ask.

I don't like people digging into my life, and I'm not interested in digging into my students' personal problems either.

Still, for the first time, I get the sense that the Mason Hale in the campus photos and the one sitting across from me aren't exactly the same person.

Not that it matters.

I hand the pen back to him.

"Do it again."