Teach Me, My Little Liar

He wasn't just my best friend. He was my architect.

Ela Miller is "clumsy." She's the girl who loses her keys, fails her bio-labs, and relies on her genius best friend, Liam Vance, to keep her world upright. When their parents leave them alone for a month during a record-breaking storm, Liam offers to teach her the "lessons" she's missed out on-how to kiss, how to touch, how to know a man.

But as the rain pours, the "puppy-eyed" boy-next-door starts to slip.

Every touch is too practiced. Every "accidental" encounter feels like a trap. And the security cameras in the house? They aren't for her protection. They're for his viewing.

Ela thinks she's the teacher. She has no idea she's the prey. By the time the sun comes out, Liam doesn't just want her heart. He wants her name, her future, and every breath she takes.

He's been planning this for twenty-one years. And he's tired of playing nice.

He didn't become obsessed because he didn't understand love-he became obsessed because he thought he understood it too well. Growing up, he saw a kind of love that felt safe, constant, and complete, and somewhere along the way, he started believing that this was the only way life could feel whole. So when he met her, he didn't just see a person-he saw the possibility of recreating that same world. And slowly, without even realizing it, his love turned into something heavier... something that needed to hold on too tightly, just to feel secure.

She wasn't unaware-she was just never taught to trust herself. Growing up, every decision was made for her, every mistake corrected, every thought quietly replaced by someone else's "better" way. So when he stepped in to guide her, it didn't feel like control... it felt familiar. He didn't take her independence away-she had never really learned to hold onto it in the first place. And when care starts to look like control, it becomes almost impossible to tell the difference.