Defiant Princess: A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance (Boys of Oak Park Prep Book 2)

by Callie Rose

  Today, I picked up where my last research session had ended and typed “Element Investments” into the search bar. Philip had told me my mom and the Princes’ parents used to be close friends, that they’d even started a company together after college.

  There wasn’t a lot of information about the company itself available online, although maybe that shouldn’t have been too surprising considering it only seemed to have been around for a year or so. I found several articles discussing the inception of the company, but almost nothing chronicling its end. It seemed to have just sort of fizzled out, dying quietly and sinking out of the public eye.

  I found a few pictures of the group of them—my mom and her college friends—from right before the company got off the ground, and I unconsciously leaned closer to the screen to stare at the images. My mom was young, just a few years out of college, and she looked so much like me it was almost like peering into a mirror. The Princes’ parents resembled their sons too—Cole’s father, especially, was the spitting image of his child—and the strangest feeling of déjà vu hit me as I gazed at the tight cluster of faces.

  In another universe, that could’ve been me and the Princes.

  My fingers reached up to gently brush against the screen, ghosting over the image of my mom’s face. It hurt to see her like this, smiling and happy and carefree, knowing that just a few years later, she’d leave Roseland and everyone in it behind—and that so many people, including her own parents, would despise her at the end.

  A loud burst of music from my backpack made me jump, and I yanked my hand away from the screen as if I’d just been caught poking at a priceless old painting. The librarian raised her finger to her lips and hissed at me, even though there was nobody else here but an older man on the other side of the small bank of computers—and I was pretty sure he was too engrossed in his porn to care about my phone ringing.

  Still, I scrambled to grab it out of my bag. The loud noise in the small, quiet space was making my nerves jangle, so I swiped across the screen quickly and held it to my ear.

  “Hello?” I whispered, and the librarian hissed at me again. Waving a hand in her direction, I grabbed my backpack and slung it over my shoulder before heading for the door.

  “Talia? Why are you whispering?” Mina sounded irritated and a little suspicious.

  I held the phone away from my ear for a second as I pushed open the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. My foster mom never called me. I’d given her my cell number and programmed hers into my phone the day I’d first arrived at her house, but I had never used it. And this was only the second time she’d used mine—the first time had been to ask me to bring her food once when I got off work at Big Daddy’s.

  “I was at the library. What do you need?”

  “Oh.” If anything, she sounded more suspicious at that. “Well, there’s a woman here to see you. Says it’s urgent.”

  A thrill of nerves skated up my spine. It couldn’t be Janet, or she would’ve referred to her by name. So who else would want to speak to me? Who else even knew where I was?

  Nobody cares about you.

  Except, obviously someone did, if they’d tracked me down at my foster home.

  But that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

  “Who is it?” I asked, my voice going quiet again for an entirely new reason.

  “Says her name’s Erin Bennett. She’s a lawyer,” Mina reported, then added, “So are you coming back or not?”

  “Um, yeah. I’ll catch a bus and be there in half an hour. Can she wait?”

  There was a pause, filled by the muffled sound of Mina’s scratchy voice and a low, smooth response. Then my foster mom came back on the line, sounding more irritated than ever. “Yeah. She’ll be here.”

  My heart thudded dully in my chest as I hung up my cell and slipped it back in my pocket, already walking at a fast clip toward the bus stop. Mina’s answers hadn’t meant anything to me, and worry about what the fuck would be waiting for me at the house made me simultaneously want to get back there faster and never go back at all.

  Erin Bennett.

  A lawyer.

  Neither of those things meant shit to me. Not the name, and not why a lawyer would want anything to do with me. I hugged my backpack to my chest as if protecting the contents as I rode back across town.

  Had the Princes hired a lawyer to fuck with me even more? Hadn’t getting me kicked out of my grandparents’ house, pulled from Oak Park, and sent back to the slums of Idaho been enough for them?

  By the time I pushed open the door to Mina’s house, all my defenses were up, my whole body bristling with nervous energy as I prepared to face the worst.

  But all that greeted me was a petite woman with ash-brown hair cut in a short style that hugged her head. She wore an expensive-looking suit that flattered her small frame, and everything about her looked out of place in this shabby, run-down house.

  She rose from the couch and stepped forward, holding out a manicured hand. “Talia Hildebrand?”

  “Parker,” I muttered, shaking her hand slowly. I’d stopped using my grandparents’ last name the minute I got back to Sand Valley. Parker was the surname I’d put on my application for Big Daddy’s and the gas station.

  “Hildebrand,” she repeated, a little more firmly. Before I could say anything else, she continued, “I’m Erin Bennett. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah.” I pulled my hand back quickly, grabbing the straps of my backpack and holding on tight. “Sorry, what do you want?”

  She gave a small smile, as if she’d expected this kind of suspicion from me, and gestured for me to sit down. When I did, she took a seat on the couch next to me. “I’m a probate lawyer. Do you know what that is?”

  I shrugged. “Sort of.”

  Her smile became self-deprecating, and she tilted her head slightly. “Well, it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I’m here to help you gain access to your trust fund.”

  “My… what?”

  “The trust your mother set up for you. Charlotte Hildebrand? Before her death, she created a trust, one which you normally wouldn’t gain access to for several more years. But given your”—she glanced around the dingy house, her gaze passing briefly over Mina, who was watching our entire conversation like a hawk—“particular circumstances, I think we’ve got a very good chance of getting a judge to agree to release your fund early. Or at least a part of it.”

  “So she’ll get money?” Mina’s thin, sallow face lit with interest, and she sat forward a little. My stomach clenched, but Erin just smiled at her benignly.

  “Yes. She will.” The lawyer turned her attention back to me. “I also think there’s a good chance we can get you emancipated, especially if we can prove you’re financially independent.”

  I blinked at her as my stomach did a weird sort of dip and sway. The individual words she was saying made sense, but taken together, they were incompressible, impossible to grasp.

  “You mean I would… get out of foster care? I’d be able to live on my own?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’d have… money?”

  “Yes.” She smiled again, the kind of curt business smile that’s meant to keep the conversation moving along. Then she reached into a small leather briefcase that was leaned up against the base of the couch and pulled out a large stack of documents. “Now, if we—”

  “I can’t.” The words were scratchy.

  She hesitated, her brows drawing together. “What do you mean?”

  I licked my lips. “I can’t pay you. I mean, I have a little money saved up from my jobs, but I’m sure it’s not enough. Unless—” A spark of hope lit in my chest. “Do you work on contingency? Do you just take money from my trust fund if we win?”

  Her features smoothed out again, and she resumed spreading the forms and documents out on the coffee table. “Oh, no. No need to worry about that. My compensation has already been handled.”

  “By who?”

 
Erin’s hand paused for just a brief second before she laid down the last piece of paper. Then she glanced up at me. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say. My client has asked to remain anonymous. But don’t worry. Any and all fees incurred from my services will go to that party, not to you.”

  The knot that had been slowly growing in my stomach cinched tight. “Someone paid you to help me get my money? To emancipate me?”

  “That’s right.” She pulled a pen out of her bag and placed it between my numb fingers. “Now, we’ll start the emancipation process right away and file for an expedited decision. In the meantime, we’ll work on freeing up all or part of your inheritance. Unfortunately, that means a bit of paperwork. But don’t worry, I’ll talk you through it.”

  Mina pursed her lips, looking like she wished she could throw Erin out on her ass, and heaved herself out of the chair she’d been sitting in. She disappeared into the kitchen, and I could hear her on the phone with CPS a moment later, demanding to speak to someone.

  Of course. If I left, she’d lose part of her paycheck.

  I glanced through the open kitchen door with concern, but Erin put a hand on my knee, drawing my attention back to her.

  “Don’t worry. She can’t stop you from going. That’s what this is all about. If our petitions go through, no one can stop you from leaving.”

  Whoever had retained Erin Bennett on my behalf had spared no expense.

  She was good. Smart and skilled, almost robotically efficient.

  I called in sick to Big Daddy’s and the gas station, and Erin took me to a nice coffee shop near downtown, where she treated me to a latte and a freshly baked cinnamon roll. We spent the next several hours going over various forms and discussing what would happen next, and she answered all of my questions—except one.

  She refused to tell me who had hired her.

  I pushed hard too, even threatening to walk away, to refuse her services unless she told me. But she just sat back placidly in her seat with her hands folded on the table in front of her until I eventually caved. I could see why she was such a good lawyer. And she was—one of the best probate attorneys in the country, working out of a firm in New York. Her mysterious client had paid for her to come to Sand Valley and represent me.

  Every time I thought about that, I felt a little sick.

  Maybe I should’ve just felt grateful, should’ve taken this change of fortune and accepted it at face value. But just like when I’d been invited to live at my grandparents’ house, I could practically feel the strings attached to this favor.

  Nothing in life came free, and if I wasn’t paying for Erin’s services myself, I was sure I’d pay for them some other way, some other time.

  But the petite lawyer had been right when she’d called my bluff. As terrified as I might be of what dark corners those strings disappeared into, I couldn’t walk away from this opportunity.

  I supposed I could just play the waiting game. Wait until I turned eighteen and was officially old enough to live on my own and leave foster care. Wait until I turned twenty-one and could gain access to my trust. But I couldn’t stand the thought of that, especially not when there was even a fraction of a chance that what Erin proposed could work.

  The Princes had thrown me back in the gutter where they thought I belonged, and now a hand had been extended, offering to help me climb back out.

  If that hand belonged to the devil himself, I’d still take it.

  “I don’t want to tell you to quit your jobs until the ink is dry and you’ve got your money,” Erin said as she tapped a stack of papers into a perfect rectangle before slipping them back into her briefcase. “But I will need you to be available, sometimes at short notice.”

  “I’ll ask for some time off,” I murmured. We both stood from the table, and I gulped down the last of my latte.

  “Good.” She smiled. “With any luck, that time off can become permanent.”

  She drove me back to Mina’s house, and I ignored my foster mom’s heavy glare as I walked upstairs to my room and shut the door.

  For the next two weeks, my life became a blur of meetings and phone calls with Erin, court dates, and paperwork. I had to go speak in front of a judge twice—once in regard to the emancipation, and once about the trust. Both times, Erin provided me with a wardrobe that made me look like I was auditioning for the role of Jackie Kennedy.

  The judge who heard my case for early release of the trust fund was a large man with a round face and little tufts of hair around a gleaming bald spot at the crown of his head. He nodded almost continuously as I gave the speech Erin had helped me prepare. Then I stepped back, letting her take over the argument.

  When she finished laying out my case, he pursed his lips, reaching up to scratch his chin.

  “I don’t think there’s justification for a full release of the fund. But money can certainly be allocated for education.” He glanced down at the papers in front of him. “You were a student at Oak Park Preparatory Academy in Roseland, California, is that right?”

  My heart stuttered in my chest at the sound of that name, but I kept my face impassive, smoothing down my skirt. “Yes, sir.”

  “Very well.” He nodded decisively. “As long as you agree to finish your schooling there, I can approve the release of a portion of your trust early. You can continue your education and graduate from Oak Park.”

  Chapter 3

  The world outside the tiny airplane window was a canvas of blue and white.

  Maybe it should’ve been soothing, but when I reached down to tug my backpack out from under the seat in front of mine, my hands shook. My chest felt compressed, my ribs too small to contain my lungs and heart between them. Mina hadn’t been happy to see me go, and right up until the moment I’d stepped on the plane, I’d been tempted to change my mind. To tell Erin and the judge to fuck off, that there was no way in hell I’d ever go back to Oak Park.

  The petite powerhouse of a lawyer had handled my admissions too, speaking to Dean Levy on my behalf and arranging for my readmission to the school. Part of me had hoped after having seen the video the Princes had played in front of half the school, the dean would refuse to allow me to come back. But if he had tried to go down that road, Erin must’ve talked him out of it.

  I was pretty sure none of that was included in her usual job description, and it made me wonder all over again who was paying her, and how much.

  The anxiety churning in my stomach ramped up a notch as I considered the possibilities, so I forced that unanswerable question out of my mind and tugged the worn stack of papers from my backpack. I’d bought a little, black leather-bound journal too, and a small flash drive to store digital files on. Releasing the tray from the seatback in front of me, I started the process of transcribing my notes.

  The truth was, even as my stomach had dropped into a bottomless pit when the judge had pronounced the terms of my trust fund release, a little thrill of something like victory had gone through me too.

  I didn’t want to go back.

  I never wanted to see the Princes’ beautiful, cruel, too-perfect faces again.

  But I would never be able to hurt them from a distance the way they deserved to be hurt. I needed to get close to slip the knife blade between their ribs.

  I’d learned that lesson from them too.

  So as the plane barreled through the air, eating up miles like a rumbling monster, I carefully went through every sheet I’d printed out, making notes on Mason, Finn, Elijah, and Cole. They each got their own section, and even though I couldn’t fill up the pages with what I had so far, I knew more was waiting for me in Roseland.

  And I’d be there soon to find it.

  As I wrote, my hand slowly stopped shaking and my breathing evened out. I gathered every ounce of courage I could, letting my anger fuel it like a propane tank.

  The Princes would do everything in their power to make me regret coming back—I knew that. I was prepared for it. But I wouldn’t let them win this time. I’d keep
my heart on fucking lockdown, and I would fight back tooth for tooth, eye for eye.

  As the plane changed directions to land at LAX, the ocean came into view in the distance, and I pressed my nose to the small window. I hadn’t missed much about California, but I’d missed that.

  After grabbing my bags from the carousel, I made my way to the pickup area. I walked right by the place Jacqueline had picked me up a year ago without slowing my steps. I didn’t want to think about her or Philip. If they never even learned I was back in town, it would be fine with me. My grandmother had promised I’d never get another cent of her money, and I didn’t want it. Thanks to Erin, I’d never need it.

  I called an Uber and waited at the designated pickup spot, then waved the guy off when he scrambled out of the car to put my bags in the trunk.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it.”

  Everything I had wanted to bring from Sand Valley had fit into two large suitcases and my backpack. I’d ordered new uniforms and had them sent to my room at the school, and I needed to get a laptop too. I heaved both suitcases into the trunk, and the driver shut the lid before slipping back behind the wheel. He made an attempt at conversation, but after a few of my half-assed, muttered responses, he gave up and turned the music up a little louder.

  I couldn’t stop staring out the window, watching the southern California landscape roll by as if it was all a dream, a mirage. I’d forgotten how bright it was here, how blue the sky was.

  School had started already—the emancipation process had taken long enough that Oak Park was starting their second week of classes—but I’d been assured by Erin that it would be fine. The teachers knew to expect me in class tomorrow, which gave me the rest of the day to get settled in.

  As the Uber driver pulled through the black metal gates onto campus, I clenched the door handle so hard my knuckles turned white. I had the strongest urge to dig through my backpack and pull out the little black book in there, as if it could provide some kind of shield to keep me safe from the Princes.