God she’s irritating.
“I’m sorry, Beth. You’ve misunderstood your role,” Coach starts. “You’re not just helping him get his green card. You’re helping him stay out of trouble. Stay sober. Get to training sessions. Make it to try-outs. How was it that you put it earlier? Baby-sitting”
I flash him a cold hard stare. “I’m no fucking baby.”
She looks horrified for a second or two, but I can see the hunger in her eyes. I knew she wouldn’t be able to turn the money down, though. Coach is anxiously wringing his hands, the Dean is tracing a mark on his desk with his finger as if he would rather be anywhere else, but I just sit back in my chair and watch her face. She’ll say yes. She has to.
“No.”
“What?” I baulk and Coach’s eyes bulge. Dean looks up slowly at her.
“No.” She sits back in her chair and folds her arms.
Unbelievable.
“Do you know who I am?” I growl at her.
“Trust me, I know exactly who you are. That is why I am not accepting this deal. Fifty thousand dollars to climb Mount Everest or swim across the Ganges is a good deal. Fifty thousand dollars to try and I do mean try, to keep you in line is a rip-off.”
This greedy bitch.
The Dean chuckles silently to himself and nods, waiting for me to answer.
“Seventy, nope…eighty thousand dollars.”
“Listen, you cu-”
“Would you like to make it one hundred?” She glares at me with raging eyes and a steel cold face.
“I see trash throwing themselves at you daily. You don’t need me, Maverick. If you don’t want to pay the fee, then don’t marry me. You would make me a very happy woman.” Her face is creased with disdain.
“What’s that? You can’t blackmail those girls? Ah, so you actually need me. Shame. If only your pockets ran deep enough to cover the actual cost of me enduring just the thought of being your lawfully wedded wife.”
She spits the last line out with rancor, as though spoilt milk has somehow landed inside her mouth. No one speaks for a few beats and I stare at her, daring her to back down, but she’s out for blood. She knows she’s right. I know she’s right. We all know it.
I may be the life of the party, but I’m nobody’s husband.
“Fine,” I growl after a few beats of grating silence crawls by.
She nods. “Courthouse wedding?” she asks.
“Eloping would be your best bet,” the Dean says.
She nods. “Right. Because then nobody will have the chance to talk me out of it.”
She runs a hand through her hair and my eyes, for whatever reason, follow her fingers. She actually has good hair, even if she can’t be bothered to do anything with it. I’d insist that her hygiene improves after we get married, but I don’t intend to make this public knowledge anyhow so I really shouldn’t care.
“Fine. How soon do you want to do this?” She asks, bringing me back from my awkward thoughts.
“As soon as possible. Today.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t, I have work.”
“No you don’t. You quit. You don’t need it, remember?”
I can see the wheels turning in her head.
“Twenty-five now. Twenty-five when it’s official and the rest when you get drafted, if you get drafted straight out of high school. If not, I’ll accept your contingency.”
“Fine.”
She sighs. “Deposit the money in my account first, then we’ll go.”
“Excellent. I’ll drive.”
I use my phone to transfer the funds. As soon as she confirms that they arrived, we are on our way to becoming man and God damn wife.
“Don’t walk too close to me,” I tell her as we leave the office. “There’s no reason the whole school needs to know about this.”
It would positively ruin my reputation. She is notorious for being the teacher’s pet, the frumpy grumpy uppity poor bitch. I probably could have chosen a better partner for this charade, but honestly, I don’t want anyone who would want to make a thing of it.
Beth is just as pissed off about this as I am, which is perfect. I can’t see her running around trying to keep me let alone me wanting to keep her around longer than necessary. It’s perfect enough to mask just how gross it is.
The school is practically empty as we leave, which helps significantly. My sleek silver sportscar sits in its spot outside, glistening in the sun. It is my pride and joy...until it’s time to get a new one.
Not that I care what she thinks of me or anything, but as we approach it, I steal a glance in her direction to gauge her reaction.
She has none. There’s just that same tight-lipped scowl she always seems to wear whenever she sees me, plastered firmly in place. I push the button which makes the doors open vertically, and glance at her again.
She raises a single brow.
“Oh come on,” I say, exasperated. “You have to admit that was cool.”
She rolls her eyes. “Seems like a waste of perfectly good resources to me. What’s the matter, too weak to open the door on your own?”
I want to glare at her, but I grin instead. I’m not about to let her get to me—and if she does, she sure as hell isn’t going to know it. As I slide behind the steering wheel, a wicked thought occurs to me. I fully intend to get a reaction out of her one way or another.
“Buckle up,” I smirk with a cheeky wink.
She stares at me flatly and gestures to the secured seatbelt.
“Oh fine, so you’re a safety genius too.” I shake my head and fasten my own belt.
I can already tell that she is going to make my life hell, I can just feel it. Well, two can play that game.
As we hit the highway, I slam the accelerator to the floor, relishing in the feel of soft leather seats cushioning my body against the g-forces.
She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
Really? That’s it?
The speedometer creeps higher as the cars around us sit frozen in time.
I can see her fingers gripping the seats tightly even as she tries to keep a straight face. “You’re going to get pulled over,” she growls at me.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” I reach over and pop the glove box open, spilling dozens of tickets out onto her lap.
“Haven’t you heard? ‘Punishable by fine’ is simply a fancy way of saying ‘legal for those of us with healthy bank accounts’.” I grin.
“No. I’m afraid I haven’t heard that,” she says through gritted teeth. “I must not be rich enough. Have you heard that the back of a semi can rip a car in half?” she’s almost shrieking.
“What?”
“Look out!” she screams.
The truck is squat in a seemingly immobile line directly in front of us. Every lane is taken and there’s no time to slow down. The shoulder will have to do.
I jerk the wheel to the right a little too hard.
The world spins around us. A grey and green smear dotted with the formidable blacks and reds of cars drawing nearer. Horns blare. The green swallows the grey and then we are tumbling, green-blue-green nonsense all around as the sky and grass argue over our personal gravity.
We settle on our wheels with a bit of a bounce. The roof is a bit closer than it had been a moment ago, but I appear to be relatively whole.
“Whoo! What a ride! Let’s do that again.”
Beth turns her head slowly to look at me. Her green irises burn like fire in her paper-white face. Her knuckles crack as she releases the leather seat from her clenched fists.
“Are you planning to scold me or strangle me? Because I should tell you that I laugh at the first and get hard for the second.”
Her lips disappear into a thin, cold line and she turns away from me, feeling for a handle on the inside of the door. Perhaps I should tell her not to bother, but it was fun to watch her look. Besides, I know the deal will be off the second she gets out of the car, and I need the chance to soften her before that.
<
br /> “Are you alright?” I ask with as much sincerity as I can muster.
I mean, she’s obviously fine, the car was built with racing in mind. It can stand up to a bump or two, but she seems keen on being dramatic. She doesn’t answer, just keeps searching with trembling fingers for a handle.
“I’m terribly sorry about those drivers,” I add after a moment.
She whips around, her eyes so big and furious I can actually see the pink rings around the whites. “What?!”
“Well, trucks are meant to stay in the right-hand lane, aren’t they? If they had just done as they were supposed to—”
“No! You shut up! This is your fault!”
My spine stiffens and I nearly bump my head on the sunken roof. “I beg your pardon?”
“You did this! If you hadn’t been trying to scare me with your stupid street racing crap this never would have happened! How the hell does this damn door even open?!”
“Now wait just a minute. I’ve never crashed like that before in my life, and I’ve driven like that a hundred thousand times or more. Those damn trucks—”
“Shut the fuck up about the damn trucks and open this fucking door.” She isn’t screaming anymore. This hushed, crushed-ice tone is somehow more frightening, cold and so distant she might as well have been an alien. She jerks her chin toward my window.
Blue and red lights. Oh, this should be fun.
“Remember the deal,” I smirk. “You keep me out of trouble, you get more money. Keep your mouth shut and agree with everything I say.”
“Are you insane? Do you know how many people watched you try to kill us?”
“Yes, but how many recorded it? Do as I say or kiss that money goodbye. And I’ll sue you for breach of contract for the money I already gave you. And everything else your family has.”
State troopers are making their way down the hill as more flashing lights appear.
I hold her gaze, willing my threat to make it through to the other side of that cold, stubborn barrier nesting in her eyes.
“Everything,” I repeat. “Down to grandma’s silverware and your childhood stuffies.”
Tears fill those burning green orbs, extinguishing the flames. Perfect. That is exactly the state she needs to be in.
I make my own face crumble as the first officer taps on the window.
This should be a breeze.
If my fiancé can just behave.
5
Beth
Fury chokes my tongue in my throat. I can’t keep myself from shaking, and my brain is like white noise. A cool, distant, rational part of me informs me that I am in shock. The EMTs agreed, I suppose, because after a blur of activity I can’t seem to track, they wrap me up in a warm blanket and sit me in the back of an ambulance. I can hear Maverick jabbering away in phony distress, but the words aren’t registering.
“Can you tell me your name?” The young EMT beside me squeezes my hand.
“Beth,” I say.
“Beth, can you tell me the date?”
“October 28th.”
“Good. Your vitals look good too and I don’t think you have a concussion. We could take you to the hospital to get you thoroughly checked out—”
“No, no, that’s fine.” God, what a way to blow ten thousand dollars all at once.
“Are you sure?” He glances down the shallow hill at the wreck, then looks back at me. “Honestly, it’s a miracle you two survived.”
I can tell that I’m going to have to prove it. I force a smile and shrug the blanket off my shoulders. I’m not quite steady yet, but I’m going to have to fake it. I jump to the ground, barely sticking the landing, and nod firmly, despite my wince. “I’m sure.”
He shrugs. “All right. I think the police have some questions for you.”
That white buzz threatens to take my mind over again. I don’t know what Maverick told them. How am I supposed to corroborate a story I don’t know?
It will be all over and I will be—well, in the exact same position I’d been in this morning. Nothing will change for the worse. Even if he does try to sue us for everything we have, it won’t do too much damage. A couple of antique creamers and an outdated video game console are all we really have to offer anyway.
An officer approaches the ambulance. There is a bit of fluff in his bushy mustache and for some reason, I fixate on it. It wobbles when he speaks, and I have the insane urge to laugh but I smother it. I can see Maverick watching me from a distance, trying to send me messages with his eyes.
I’m not psychic, you moron.
“You’re Beth?” The officer asks.
“Yes.”
“What happened here?”
Plausible deniability. That’ll have to do it.
“I’m not really sure,” I say. “I was looking at my phone while Maverick was driving. Then he shouted—I can’t remember if he said anything or just shouted—next thing I know we’re spinning out and rolling down the hill.”
“How fast was he going?”
Light speed, or just about. I shake my head apologetically. “I’m really not sure. It didn’t feel that fast, but I wasn’t really paying attention.”
The officer puts his hands on his hips, just above his prominently displayed gun. I focus on that instead of the wobbling fluff and every urge to laugh disappears. Is lying to an officer illegal? I can’t remember.
“We have a witness who says he was doing over a hundred, but I find that hard to believe. A crash of any kind at a hundred miles an hour would have crushed you both. Are you aware that he has been ticketed for reckless driving?”
The tickets are all over the place in the car. He knows that I know. I suppose lying may be illegal after all. Not a chance I want to take. Maverick isn’t worth a second of jail time.
“He told me just before the crash. Well not about reckless driving specifically, but he showed me copies of tickets he’d been given. I’ve never driven with him before and didn’t know.”
The officer nods and his posture relaxes. “He’s your boyfriend?”
God, I wish I had listened in on Maverick’s rambling whimpers. Would he have been smart enough to keep his lies in order?
“Fiancé,” I say, gambling. “We were on our way to buy my ring when all this happened.”
He frowns. “Little young to be getting married, aren’t you?”
I shrug. “We’re in love. Why wait when you know?” The words taste sour in my mouth and I turn my cringe into the crumpled face of someone who nearly lost everything. The officer’s face softens, and he puts a hand on my shoulder.
“I understand,” he says. “My wife and I were high school sweethearts too. Just be careful, okay?”
I nod. “I will. Thank you.”
He walks back over to Maverick and shakes his hand. The ambulance gets another call and wails off into the hazy afternoon. The cops slowly wrap up whatever it is they were doing and disperse in various directions. The tow truck seems to be here forever, but eventually, the crumpled bit of expensive machinery is fastened securely behind it.
“You kids need a ride?” The driver asks.
“Yes please,” Maverick says. “Could you drop us off at my flat?”
I swear he insists on using British slang just to sound posh. I roll my eyes and climb into the truck beside him. It doesn’t occur to me until we are already on the road that I have no idea where his apartment is, and have no intention of spending any time inside of it. But I don’t say anything. The driver drops us at the address Maverick gave him, which turns out to be a tall, glistening building in the heart of downtown.
“Take care,” the driver says, waving as he pulls away.
Maverick watches his smashed-up car go and sighs. “Well, that’s another one gone. Come on.” He turns to walk inside.
“I’ll just take the bus home,” I say.
“You don’t even want to see where you’ll be living?”
My heart stops for a second. “Wait. What?”
He huffs,
annoyed. “Immigration won’t take a marriage seriously if the married partners aren’t living together, will they? Or sleeping in the same bed?”
My eyes widen. “Hold on. Nobody ever said anything about me sleeping with you.”
He makes a face that would have done terrible things to my self-esteem if I gave a flying fuck what he thought about me. “Not sleeping together, sleeping together. Just using the same mattress to be unconscious upon.”
“That’s not much better. And it’s also unnecessary.”
He gives me a flat, irritated look. I raise my hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. Take me upstairs.”
“That’s more like it.”
“You can keep your patronizing thoughts to yourself, you know.”
“And you could keep your hair up, couldn’t you?”
I glare at him and run a self-conscious hand through my hair. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
He looks it over and waves a hand. “It’s so boring. Just brown. Don’t you ever curl it? Or cut it, even, good Lord are you trying to break a record?”
“What if I am?”
“You aren’t. You just don’t care how you look.”
That somehow stings, and I flash heated eyes at him as we step into the elevator.
“Excuse me? I’m very proud of my hair, thank you very much. It took years to grow it this long, I like the color, and curling would only damage it. What about you? Who told you that frosted tips were still a thing?”
He grins. “Can’t remember.”
“Because it was so long ago, or because you were drunk?”
He winks at me but doesn’t answer. The elevator dings and the doors slide open. “Here we are,” he says. “The penthouse suite.”
I roll my eyes as I step through the door, determined not to be impressed. He hadn’t earned any of this, after all. I’m almost relieved to step into a living room a bit smaller than my own.
“This is nice enough,” I say, glancing at the generic couch against one wall. It sits beside a shoe rack which holds far fewer pairs than I had anticipated. I assume the TV is in the cupboard across from the couch. It’s way closer to the apartments I had looked at for myself than I had envisioned.
Vile Intentions: A Dark Sports Bully Romance Page 3
