Bully Romance where the heroine is the bully

Is that a thing that really exists? Obviously there's tons where the hero bullies the heroine, but what about the reverse?

Kind of the closest I've read is high schoolish books where the heroine is a mean girl/queen bee and the hero is a nerdy/shy guy, but it that's about it. And most often its the heroines existing social circle who bullies the hero not the actual heroine.

I'll have to think about that one. I'm thinking like you that the only ones I can think of are YA with mean girls that are not necessarily the heroine.

The heroine isnt strictly the bully, but the trilogy started with 'I Hate You' by Lexy Timms seems to be in the ballpark.

Its about a guy getting bullied by a sorority and its leaders with heroine going along with it / caught up in it.

Not necessarily in the same way.

It's possible, although these days not likely, that a male bully can be a hero, and used to be very common in Old Skool romances.

Rachel Simmons' book Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls does a good job explaining that most of the bullying girls do growing up is complicated and social rather than direct as in boys. One girl gets singled out from the group (sometimes even for being "more popular" or "more successful" or "better-looking"), and for a certain amount of time or as long as she's with them she gets subtly bullied, slut-shamed or just ignored (sometimes she doesn't know whether she's in or out from day to day...)

A woman who grew up in that sort of environment could probably try to subtly gaslight a man. Or simply threaten to hurt/kill herself if he doesn't do what she wants.

The nearest to a heterosexual "bullying relationship" novel I've seen with the woman as a bully have been psychological thrillers like Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

Now I think of it, the nearest to a bullying heroine I've seen is in the psychological thriller Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone: the heroine's motivation is to avenge her dearest friend who killed herself over a worthless man with pretensions to fundamentalist Christianity whose views are deeply rooted in misogyny. Along the way to revenge she finds a man she likes, and a cat she likes, and catches feelings for both despite what she views as her own sociopath nature.

As I think on it further, there are antagonist women in romance, but they're the hero's ex-mistresses, ex-bride or stepmother, and usually portrayed as hard, gold-digging or conniving, not as sympathetic characters.

I do have one firm recommendation, though. I haven't yet read it, but The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham is apparently all about a heroine who leans hard into "rake" behaviour, with lots of drinking and sex, and her female friends and feminist ideals humanise her from being too much of a caricature. She does of course meet a totally cinnamon-roll sort of man who presumably turns her happy life into more of an "It's complicated", but this is a romance. That might actually be what you're looking for if you're looking for a fun tropey romance.