“You’re to attend a meeting on Friday after school,” Beck announced, folding his thick, muscled arms across his chest. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and I needed to bite my cheek not to check him out.
“Huh?” I blurted when his words sunk into my brain. “What sort of meeting? Where? About what?”
Beck narrowed his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched in what could have been a smile. Hell could have also frozen over.
“Don’t ask questions, spare,” Evan commented in a bored voice. “If Beck says you’re to attend, then you attend. Simple as that.”
Outraged, I glared at the disinterested playboy. “What did you just call me?”
Evan rolled his eyes. “I called you spare. Because you’re the Deboises’ spare successor. You’re Catherine’s dirty little secret that she tried very hard to keep secret, but of course everyone knew she’d gotten herself knocked up a second time.” He pressed closer to me. “Only, you’re supposed to be dead … so how are you here, mere months after Oscar’s death? Seems convenient.”
I bristled at his thinly veiled accusations. Did these assholes seriously think I was some sort of gold-digger? A fake? That I had deliberately sought out the Deboise family and demanded my inheritance? I guessed that meant I was somehow responsible for my parent’s deaths too?
Bile rose in my throat, and I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth.
After sucking in a few breaths and making sure I wasn’t about to cry or vomit, I leveled a death stare at the three of them. Mostly Beck, because he was their king. “You can take your demands and your summons and shove them up your ass, Sebastian Roman Beckett. If anything else will fit in there alongside your fat head. I’m no one’s pawn. Not Catherine’s, and certainly not yours.” I spun on my heel, intending to storm off down the hall but a huge hand clamped down on my plastered arm and yanked me off balance.
I stumbled two steps, then caught my balance against Beck’s rock hard chest. That intoxicating scent of his invaded my senses and made my head spin, but he held me so close I couldn’t look up at his face even if I tried.
“You’ll be there, Butterfly, or Eddy will pay for your disobedience.” His words were low and delivered right into my ear. How fucked up was I, that a shiver of arousal ran through me while he was literally threatening my new friend?
Gritting my teeth, I pulled back just enough to glare up at him. “Let. Go. Of. Me.” I demanded, biting each word off in anger.
For a long moment, we remained locked within each other’s hard stare, but it was Beck who broke first, releasing my cracked plaster wrist—made worse by his tight grip.
“Go and see the nurse, Butterfly. That cast looks like it was done at a walk-in clinic.”
“Bite me,” I snapped back. Probably not the most creative insult I’d ever come up with but he set my nerves on edge like no one I’d ever met before. This time when I spun around and stalked away, he didn’t stop me. He also didn’t let me have the last word.
“Make smart choices, Butterfly. Eddy is awfully attached to that mustang.”
My step faltered, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of arguing further. I just kept walking, and feeling those eyes burning into my backside.
8
The next few days passed surprisingly uneventfully. I had gone to see the school nurse; not because Sebastian had told me to, but because the cracked plaster only got worse, and I knew I was only hindering my own recovery by refusing to fix it. As it turned out, she’d been able to give me a black sort of exoskeleton thing that secured with Velcro straps. It instantly eased the pain, and although I hated to admit it, it looked a shit load better than my old plaster cast.
On Wednesday Dante went back to Jersey to take care of some “business.” He told me I appeared to be “handling my shit okay,” and he promised he’d be back soon. He wasn’t wrong either, I was dealing better than I expected. Eddy drove me to and from school every day, and I’d managed to avoid any major arguments or run ins with Beck and his crew. Best of all, I hadn’t seen Debitch at all.
By the time Friday rocked around, I was actually in an okay mood.
Eddy had been bubbling with excitement all day about the party she was dragging me to and had made me promise to sneak out if I had to. Not that it should really be an issue when Catherine was nowhere to be seen.
My last class of the day was Economics... a subject that I had been shocked to find I actually enjoyed. I was catching up fast, a fact that was evident by my results in the Friday afternoon pop quiz, so I was in high spirits as class let out and I headed out to the parking lot to find Eddy.
When I reached her, my good mood dropped like a ton of bricks.
“What’s wrong?” I exclaimed, noticing the mascara streaks down her face and her puffy red eyes. “Eddy, what happened?”
She sniffed hard, but wouldn’t meet my eyes as she fumbled for her driver’s side door and slid into the seat. “I’m sorry, Riles,” she whispered as she revved her ignition and slammed her door shut. “I tried to tell you, they’re in charge.” Not pausing to explain any further, she reversed out of the parking lot and left me standing there in confusion. Until I saw who was parked in the next place over.
“Get in the car, Butterfly,” Beck ordered, smug as fuck. Furious, I stared in the direction Eddy had gone, silently begging her to come back. But she wouldn’t. Beck had delivered his threats directly to her—no doubt he knew I wasn’t going to break so easily.
“I can always make things worse, if I need to break you,” he commented, somehow sensing my inner thoughts. “In fact, I think I’d quite enjoy that. Just try me, Riley.” His eyes were hard. Totally devoid of emotion.
I shuddered, but this time it was in fear. Every fiber of my being knew he was serious and I badly didn’t want to know what he would do next. He already had my number. He’d figured out that I didn’t give two shits what happened to me but my friends... I’d do anything for my friends, even if I had only known them a week.
“Last chance. Get in the car.” His tone was so casual, so devoid of caring that it set my danger radar off in a big way. He wanted me to refuse. This was some sort of sick game to him!
Dropping my bag from my shoulder to my hand, I fished out the little bottle of hand sanitizer and packet of tissues that was tucked in the front zip. “Sure thing,” I replied in a sickly sweet voice. “Let me just sanitize my seat real quickly. The last thing I need is to catch a disease from whatever tramps have been sitting there with no panties on.”
Beck muttered something under his breath then snatched the sanitizer and my bag from my hands before holding the passenger door to his Bugatti open. “Get in the car,” he repeated for the third time, and seeing as I’d run out of sassy comebacks, I did as I was told.
“Where are your boyfriends?” I asked when he slid into the driver’s seat and pulled his door shut. This was the first time all week I’d seen him without Jasper, Evan and Dylan shadowing his every move. When he didn’t reply, I decided to run with it.
“How does that all work anyway?”
This seemed to pique his interest and he arched a brow at me as he revved the engine of my beautiful unicorn car. “How does what work?”
My breath caught, and I needed to bite the inside of my cheek to stifle a moan. This car...
“Your four-way gay relationship,” I pressed on with my snark and desperately prayed my face wasn’t flushing.
A small smile twitched at his lips. “You’re asking who is top and bottom, Butterfly? Does that sort of thing turn you on?”
The rumble of the engine seemed to purr through the seats, and I tightened my thighs as Beck smoothly pulled out into the street and gunned the accelerator. “Fuck me,” I breathed out before biting my lip as the speed pressed me into my seat like a firm hand. Had Beck just heard that? Why, why, why had I gotten into this sexy, wet dream of a car? With him? I wasn’t strong enough for this type of torture.
Licking my lips and twisting my plaid skirt in my fingers, I risked a quick glance at Beck and found an arrogant smirk on his face that equally made me want to throat punch him and rip his clothes off. It was in that moment that I first considered therapy.
“Where are we going?” I asked, desperately changing the subject from what turned me on. The last thing I needed to do was lose my tenuous hold over my tongue and blurt out that fast cars and asshole guys with god complexes were what made me wet.
Beck turned his attention from the road long enough to give me a pitying look. Long enough for the danger of his inattention at high speeds to spike my adrenaline and quicken my breathing. Thank the gods of school uniforms, my heavy woolen sweater was thick enough to hide how hard my nipples were in that moment.
“We have a company meeting to attend. I told you on Monday and you chose to ignore me, remember?” His tongue trailed across his lower lip in what had to be a deliberate move. The bastard was too damn aware of his own looks for that to have been accidental.
Using my nails, I pinched the side of my thigh to remind myself who I was messing with. This was Sebastian Roman Beckett. Self-confessed king of Ducis Academy. Gorgeous or not, I’d still rather punch him in the face than kiss him.
I think.
“I remember,” I gritted out. “I meant, where is this meeting being held?”
His cocky smirk said he was totally aware of his effect on me, but he thankfully let it go as he navigated the winding roads back toward the compound where I was currently residing. There was no way in hell I’d ever call it home.
“My house,” he announced with a sarcastic lilt. “Congratulations, Butterfly. You get to step inside the snake pit.”
Anger and dread settled in my stomach, and I realized that Eddy must have repeated what I’d said earlier in the week. I was fast coming to learn that she really couldn’t keep her mouth shut when it came to these guys. She really believed that they ruled her world.