Victor: Her Ruthless Crush by Theodora Taylor (beach read book TXT) 📕

like you. I like you too much. To the point of craziness. He told her this with his kiss, his mouth roaming over hers.

He kissed her and kissed her until she became pliant and began to kiss him back.

Then he drew back and signed something else he had never said to another human before. Especially to a girl. “I'm sorry. I am sorry for being a coward.”

He told her, “I like you very much. You make me very happy. Dawn, you are the only girl who does this to my heart.”

Her eyes were still wide, but they were also soft now. And she was no longer fighting him.

So he risked withdrawing both of his hands to ask, “Will you be my girlfriend? Please say yes.”

13

DAWN

“Will you be my girlfriend? Please say yes.”

My heart thundered in my chest, and there was a strange feeling in my belly like I was falling…into something I didn’t understand but desperately wanted.

So just in case, you weren't paying attention…

Victor was back in Tokyo.

He’d enrolled at my school.

And now he was asking me to be his girlfriend. Just a few hours after my father ordered me never to see him again.

And, I was, like, 50% sure he was actually serious this time.

Maybe he wasn’t.

Maybe there was another shoe hanging out right above my head, just waiting to drop.

But before I could second guess myself, two letters formed on my right hand: O and K.

“O-K?” he repeated with his own right hand.

“O-K,” I signed again, clamping my lips. And hoping to God, this wasn’t him playing some cruel mind game with me.

But when I peeped up at him and saw the expression on his face, it instantly became clear to me that it wasn’t.

One, I just wasn't the kind of girl guys bothered to play mind games with. In all three years I’d been in Japan, not one of the boys at school had asked me out or even given me a second look. I was near invisible at my school, and I was pretty sure most guys at Tokyo Progressive only knew me as Byron's sister.

But I didn't feel invisible at that moment. Not with Victor looking down at me, his gaze soft. Like I was the only thing in the room. The only thing in the world.

So this was how it felt…

This was how it felt to be gazed upon by someone who liked you as much as you liked them.

Before Victor, before that moment, I’d been baffled by the girls at Tokyo Progressive who spent so much time trying to get boys to look at them like Victor was looking at me. Their efforts had seemed so silly to me. But now I got it. I totally, totally got it.

Then I got it again when Victor leaned down to kiss me.

This time as my boyfriend.

The day after our first kiss, Byron and I found a Bentley idling outside of Adachi-ku station when we arrived.

“I don't want to be one of those people who think all black Bentleys look the same,” Byron said beside me. “But is that Victor's car?”

As if in answer to his question, Donny climbed out.

“Neih hou!” he greeted, opening the back door of the Bentley for us as we approached.

Byron and I exchanged a “can you believe this?” look before jumping into the car.

There, we found Victor, waiting inside. We both climbed into the row of seats opposite him, just like the last time we were in his car.

But before I could buckle my seatbelt, Victor covertly beckoned me with a downward hand.

My face flooded with a warm, pleased heat. And all sorts of feelings popped off in my chest as I switched seats and settled in beside him.

Byron glanced between the two of us. Getting it now, even though we never got the chance to talk about my relationship with Victor.

He gave me a significant look. And being his sister, it was easy to translate. Dad's not going to like this.

Fortunately, he was cool enough not to share that thought out loud. He just spoke-signed, “Noice! Thanks for picking us up, V.”

And that was it. Byron and Victor signed about basketball and other things the rest of the way to school. I stayed out of the conversation, content to bask in the feeling of being Victor Zhang’s girlfriend.

ToProg wasn't remotely like the high schools back in Jersey. When we pulled up to its front gates, there were no hormonal teens tonguing each other down on the other side of it. PDA like that just wasn’t a thing, even in Japan’s most metropolitan city.

But couples did hold hands, and Victor took hold of mine as soon as we emerged from his Bentley.

Letting everyone know in this culturally acceptable but very public way that we were together now.

And just like that, we were official.

In an instant, I went from being Byron's sister to the new guy's girlfriend.

Did I say I was invisible before? Suddenly American girls who had never talked to me in the entire time I’d been going to Tokyo Progressive wanted to sit down next to me in homeroom.

Wow, how did you find such a hot Japanese guy—wait, is he Japanese?

Where is he from?

How did you even know each other? Did you meet before this week?

Is it true he can hear but can’t talk? What’s up with that?

Barbara Walters had nothing on the girls gathered around me in homeroom. I mostly deflected their questions the best I could. Until this, Victor had been so private. It didn’t feel right to gossip about him behind his back with girls who never gave me the time of day before I started dating him. But I had to admit that I, too, was curious about why my boyfriend was mute.

“Do you mind telling me why you can't talk?” I asked Victor the following Tuesday.

We were sitting across from each other at his brand-new study table and doing homework together. Since I'd sent all my college applications off early, I