by Bella King
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
More by Bella King
Drop Out
A Dark Enemies to Lovers College Bully Romance
[East Bridge University Series]
Bella King
Copyright © 2019 by Bella King
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Introduction
Gray eyes and a navy-blue suit.
Handsome to a fault, and too perfect to be true.
I knew that he would destroy me.
But I let him in anyway.
East Bridge was supposed to be prestigious.
It was anything but that.
Over-the-top dorm room parties, drinking, smoking, and hookups.
Wild days, and wilder nights.
Reckless and dangerous behavior.
East Bridge was a party school for the elite.
And I was sorely out of place.
It was fit in or get flunked.
Guess which one I did.
You can’t handle East Bridge University. Drop out now.
You’ll slit your own throat before the week is over.
Nobody like you makes it through this place alive.
I was always an introverted young woman. I never stepped out of line.
He was a rich guy who was used to getting anything he wanted, including women like me.
He hated me, but for some reason, he was also obsessed with me.
I hated that he was so damn hot. Otherwise, I would have never fallen into his trap.
Chapter 1
I never got mail. Nobody had any reason to write to me. But today, I got a letter.
It came in a thick off-white envelope, textured like linen and smelling of opportunity. It was a letter I thought I would never receive, but here it was.
I pulled it out of the mailbox, leaving the remainder of the junk mail and bills inside the black plastic mailbox. I held it in my hand for a moment as a drop of rain fell through the autumn air and splashed onto the front, staining the envelope a deeper yellow.
It took me a moment to have the sense to tuck it into my jacket to keep it from getting soggy in the rain. I was in awe of it, but also a bit frightened. I never expected it to receive anything from that place. I thought that they would overlook me like everyone else did.
I knew that my heart would be crushed if it wasn’t what I thought it was. It could be junk mail, but the envelope told me a different story. Nobody would waste such a fine package on cheap advertisements. Besides, my name was handwritten in red ink by a fountain pen on the front. That had to count for something.
I turned it over beneath the warmth of my jacket as I walked up the driveway back to the house. The envelope was stiff and sturdy, signifying its importance. The more I felt it, the more excited I got at the prospect of what could lay inside. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but it was too late. My heart pounded in my chest, and my mind raced as I took the steps onto the porch by threes.
I pulled the tattered screen door open and entered my aunt’s house. A gray cat stared up at me from his favorite spot in the hallway as I came inside, shaking the droplets of water off my coat. He trotted away after a sprinkle of water landed on his flat face.
The air inside the house smelled like biscuits, which meant that my aunt was heating up the frozen ones she had bought from the grocery store yesterday. She never actually baked anything from scratch, but she liked to try to pass them off as homemade at the annual neighborhood get-together that was held every year at the beginning of autumn.
I was never social enough to care for the mindless chitchat that went on at the gathering, but I did enjoy the food, even my aunt’s frozen biscuits. They were just as good as anything homemade, in my opinion, but then again, I was never much of a chef myself. I couldn’t tell the difference between something homecooked and something bought at the store.
Perhaps I had never had anything good enough to be able to taste the difference, but I had grown up poor. Fine dining wasn’t an option for people like me. I lived with my aunt in a small house outside of the city, and I worked at a sandwich shop on the weekend during my senior year of high school. Now that I had graduated, I was working more, but I hoped that would change soon. I was trying to get into college and make something of myself.
My parents had both been highly educated people, unlike my aunt. I loved her, but she was poor for a reason. She didn’t finish high school before marrying my uncle, and they had divorced ten years ago after he was caught with another woman. After that, she had to work for herself, scraping together what little we had to get by. It had become easier for us once I started working, but I didn’t want to stay like this. I wanted to go to college.
I didn’t pull the letter out of my jacket until I got up to my bedroom. I placed it down on my small bed and flung my jacket onto one of the bedposts, sitting down beside the letter to stare at it.
Okay, Jane. You’re going to have to open it if you want to see what’s inside.
I picked it up, feeling the weight of it in my hand. The corners were sharp enough to be painful, as though it had been placed in the mailbox by a special courier instead of having gone through the regular postal system. I flipped over the letter to exam the back.
A wax seal separated me from the contents of the envelope. It was almost too pretty to disturb, but I was desperate to know what was inside. After a moment of admiring the hand-stamped wax, I ran a finger underneath it and broke the seal. That was the day my life changed.
“Jane,” my aunt called from downstairs.
I jumped at her voice and shoved the letter beneath my pillow as I heard her footsteps coming up the stairs toward me. She knocked on my door, repeating my name.
I walked up to the door and opened it, giving her my most convincing smile. “What’s up?”
“Did you check the mail?” She asked, looking over my shoulder at my bed.
“Uh, sort of,” I said.
“What do you mean sort of? You didn’t bring it into the kitchen,” she said, pursing her lips together after she spoke.
I wasn’t a damn slave. It was all I could do to keep my snarky nature locked inside my body when I responded. “I’ll go get it. It was all junk anyway.”
“Is it so much to ask that you bring the mail with you when you come back inside?” my aunt asked, shaking her head.
“I’ll get it,” I said, managing another smile.
“Okay, and clean your room, please,” she
said, turning away to go back downstairs.
I rolled my eyes, waiting for her to disappear down the hall before I grabbed my coat to venture back outside. The letter would have to wait, at least until I got back inside.
Chapter 2
I never had friends. After my parents died in a car accident and I was sent to live with my aunt, I was even less prone to talk to others than I already was beforehand. I spent my days buried in books and over-studying for tests instead of meeting people and hanging around the neighborhood. It was introversion taken to the maximum.
My aunt had made a weak attempt at getting me to socialize, but she gave up after a few months. I guess she figured that a woman who doesn’t talk to men would be less trouble around the house. I was always around to help with the chores.
They say that human beings need companionship, but I don’t believe them, at least not to the extent that they claim. We had a cat in the house who would meow at me whenever he was hungry, and my aunt came upstairs to my room periodically to make me check the mail or clean up after myself. That was enough companionship for me.
What was more important to me was educational perfection. I was obsessed with getting perfect scores, excelling past my peers, and proving that I was worth giving a scholarship to. I wasn’t going to get into college any other way. We had no money, and my aunt’s credit score had turned sour long ago.
I wanted to be like my mother, not my aunt. My mother had graduated from East Bridge University with the highest honors they could give. She put her education before anything else, and she turned out fine. She married my father once they both had graduated and went on to have me. We all lived a nice life together with growing wealth until the accident took their lives.
I survived. Sometimes I wished that I hadn’t. It pained me that nobody understood how I was. It was incredible to think that there are people in the world who look down on higher educated people, but I was living with one of those people. Maybe it was jealousy, or maybe my aunt knew something that I didn’t, but I didn’t let it stop me from going that route. I had to live my life my way.
I pulled my jacket back over my arms, zipping it up this time as I headed back outside to grab the rest of the mail.
The air was crisp and light as I stepped outside again, smelling of the first leaves that had fallen this autumn. Summer had only just come to an end, so it was still warm. This was the only time of year I genuinely enjoyed. There was something soothing about the sound of rain on the dead leaves.
I walked up the mailbox as a beat-up sedan rolled to a stop on the curb next to the house. It was my uncle, but I didn’t have a clue why he was here. I pulled the junk mail and bills from the mailbox and shut it as his car engine shut off. As I walked back up the driveway, doing my best to ignore him, he got out of his car.
“Jane,” he called out, waving a hand at me.
I sighed and turned to him as he approached me. “Hi, Uncle Steve,” I said, faking a cheerful tone. If I didn’t, he would make a joke about how I would never find a good husband with that attitude, as if he would know anything about what a good husband was.
“Your aunt is home, I’m assuming,” he said, coming up to me.
“Yes,” I answered, clutching the mail tighter to my body as he came to a stop.
“Well, let’s get going then. You’ll catch a cold in this rain,” he said, waving toward the front door.
I didn’t think that was how getting sick worked, but I didn’t question him. Old people have these ideas that they loath to be questioned on. I doubted there was a shred of evidence to indicate that the rain could give you a cold.
I let my uncle into the house, not bothering to hold the screen door open for him as I came in. The cat was back sitting in the hallway, but quickly fled when he spotted my uncle. I wasn’t the only one who disliked him.
I slunk into the kitchen, leaving the mail on the counter as my uncle removed his shoes at the door. I managed to get out before my uncle came in, so I wasn’t pulled into their conversation. I made it to my room as I heard them begin to talk. Whatever he was here for, I didn’t want to be a part of it.
I closed and locked my bedroom door, jumping onto my bed as excitement returned to my body. I still hadn’t opened the letter that I had received, and it was burning a hole through my bed in my anticipation.
I snatched it from beneath the pillow and rebroke the wax seal. It had become stuck again from being pressed under my pillow. I flicked open the top of the envelope and peering inside. There was a folded paper and a few stickers tucked in alongside it. I took the paper out first.
My hands trembled as I unfolded it. I was nervous, excited, and scared all at the same time. The second I saw the words on the page, I gasped. I read it once, twice, and three times just to be certain I had read it correctly.
Dear Ms. Devlin,
East Bridge University is proud to extend a full scholarship to you in recognition of your outstanding academic achievements.
I had to read the first line more than three times to let it soak in.
At East Bridge, we champion the very best students from all parts of the country. Here, you will be offered an education like no other, so that you may succeed like no others can. We hope that you will join us this autumn to begin your journey.
The starting date provided was only two weeks away from today. I would have to hurry with my preparations if I was going to make it there on time. I would have to move across the country to get there, but the school provided housing as part of the scholarship.
My face was flushed, and my hands were shaking worse than before as I laid the letter down on my bed. I still couldn’t believe that I had done it. I was going to go to the same university as my mother. I was finally going to leave this small town and pursue the life I knew that I was destined to live.
The only thing I had to do now was to pack and tell my aunt that I wouldn’t be living with her anymore. I was sure that she would understand. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Chapter 3
“They always say stuff like that to lure you in,” my aunt said, shaking her head and handing the acceptance letter back to me over the dinner table.
My heart sunk. She wasn’t nearly as excited about it as I was, but I should have expected no less. I took back the letter and placed it beside me on the table while I ate.
“Haven’t you heard? Colleges are a scam. You can’t get a job with a regular degree anyway. They want you to have a Master's to work at the coffee show,” my uncle chimed in, waving a dinner roll at me like he was lecturing me.
I frowned. “How is it a scam? It’s a full scholarship,” I pointed out.
“Hidden fees and stuff,” he replied, waving a hand. He clearly had no idea what he was talking about.
I turned back to my aunt. “I want to go.”
She scoffed. “Aren’t you a little young for that sort of thing? Most kids work for a few years before they go back to school.”
“I’m eighteen,” I said. “I’m an adult.”
“You’re about as adult as my Boston Terrier. He still pisses himself every time someone new comes to the house,” my uncle said, receiving a laugh from my aunt.
“That’s really rude,” I replied.
“Lighten up, Jane,” my aunt said. “Your uncle and I have some news for you.”
My uncle nodded, putting the dinner roll down and clearing his throat.
Oh god, what was it now? I didn’t want news from these two. It was weird enough that my uncle had been invited to dinner, but now he was clearing his throat like he was about to give a speech. I wanted to grab my scholarship letter and make a run for it, but I remained seated.
My uncle smiled at me. “I’m going to one-up the college offer you just received with something even better. Why go to school when you could skip straight to work and help support your aunt?”
“I’m already working,” I interjected.
“Let him finish,” my aunt said, smacking my w
rist.
I jerked it away as my uncle continued. “It’s time you started working a real job. I just got promoted to manager at the manufacturing plant, so I’m allowed to hire people. I can start you out at $12.50 an hour with benefits.”
My aunt raised her eyebrows at me like I was supposed to be impressed by that.
“No, I don’t want to work at the factory. I want to go to college,” I protested.
My uncle frowned, his face growing a darker shade of pink than it normally was. “You’re lucky I’m even offering this to you. You don’t have any experience besides sticking your nose in books all day long.”
I couldn’t handle this. My aunt and uncle must have been delusional to think I was going to accept a job at the factory instead of going to my dream university on a full scholarship. I would be making bucketloads of money once I graduated, especially with how well I performed in school.
I placed my head in my hands and groaned.
“You should be grateful for this opportunity,” my aunt said. “You should be pitching in to help with the bills. I can’t pay them all myself.”
My worst nightmare was coming true. I had been given the chance of a lifetime, and my aunt and uncle wanted to squash it with their narrow and narcissistic view of the world. I had to do something to convince them that college was the right choice, but I suspected they would reject any explanation I gave them.
“I don’t want to work at the factory,” I repeated, lifting my head from my hands.
“Are you serious?” my uncle asked, his face turning even pinker. “After everything your aunt has done for you, now you want to leave her all alone here to fend for herself so that you can boost your ego with some meaningless degree?”
“It’s not meaningless,” I said weakly.
“Shut the hell up and think someone besides yourself for once,” he shouted.
My aunt started crying, playing the pity card once again. They were trying to make me feel guilty, but part of me agreed with them. My aunt had raised me after my parents died. She had sacrificed a lot to give me a good life, and I was about to walk away from it all.
