Twisted Elite
Royal Falls Elite Prequel 0.5
Kristin Buoni
Stella Hart
Copyright © 2020 by Kristin Buoni
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Foreword
1. Laney
2. Laney
3. Hunter
4. Laney
More Information
About the Author
Foreword
Twisted Elite is the short (novella-length) free prequel to the Royal Falls Elite series. The other books in the series are full-length and follow on from the events of this prequel.
Royal Falls Elite is a dark high school bully romance series. It contains content that some readers may find disturbing or offensive.
1
Laney
I’m completely invisible.
That was all I could think as I weaved my way through the enormous ballroom at the Connery mansion, balancing a silver serving tray in one hand. When I quietly offered canapés to the impossibly-chic guests in their gorgeous gowns and suits, they either snatched them from the tray without even looking at me, let alone uttering a word of thanks, or they ignored me and the tray completely. Sometimes I was fortunate enough to receive a brusque wave to let me know they weren’t interested, but that was it. Beyond that, I might as well not exist.
I couldn’t say I was surprised. The mansion stood on an estate on the outskirts of Royal Falls, New Hampshire’s wealthiest and most opulent town, and I wasn’t exactly what anyone would call Royal Falls material. Nope, I was just a fill-in maid for the glitzy party Charles Connery had decided to throw tonight at his ancestral home.
Home probably wasn’t the right word for the place, though. Palace was far more apt.
It was a grand beige limestone mansion with three stories, soaring turrets and chimneys, mullioned windows, and carved embellishments above the tall doors and windows. Even the driveway was grandiose, stretching for over a mile before sweeping into a wide circle in front of the mansion with a towering fountain in the middle.
The inside was no different in its lavishness, speaking volumes about the wealth of its owners and their love for beautiful things. Glittering chandeliers hung from the high ceilings, the floors were made from smooth marble, and the wood-paneled walls were trimmed with gold—real gold, I presumed. Every carved molding was accented in the same way.
Overall, the place was huge and ostentatious to the point of intimidation, which I suspected was exactly the point. The citizens of Royal Falls wanted to intimidate. They wanted everyone else in the state—all those supposedly below them in society—to look upon their houses with a mixture of wonderment and nervous discomfort. As if by simply gazing upon the massive buildings, they were being smugly told by the universe: You aren’t good enough. Not like the people who live here. Otherwise you’d be living here too.
A girl like me didn’t belong in a place like this unless I was serving others, because I was nothing more than a struggling student from Silvercreek with a checkered past and an overdue electricity bill.
It wasn’t a sob story. Just the truth. My mom and I barely had two pennies to rub together, but we tried our best to make ends meet each month anyway. Silvercreek—a dreary industrial town about thirty minutes down the road from Royal Falls—was all we could afford.
There was a very obvious divide between the two towns in question. Royal Falls was for people with money and status. It was filled with old money pretension on one side, new money extravagance on the other, and bloated egos throughout.
As for Silvercreek… well, it was mostly for the help.
At least two thirds of my hometown’s population made the half-hour drive to Royal Falls every day to bus tables, serve customers, scrub floors, or spray expensive perfumes in every bathroom so that the wealthy inhabitants of the town could swan around acting like their shit didn’t stink. Meanwhile, people from Royal Falls avoided Silvercreek like the plague. It was beneath them. Tacky-looking, dirty, and worst of all, poor. As if that was honestly the worst thing a town or person could be in this world.
I forced a smile and kept heading through the party, stopping every few seconds to offer the canapé tray to guests I hadn’t served yet. A gaggle of beautifully-dressed teenage girls with glossy hair and sparkling jewels around their necks curled their lips into smirks and then giggled behind their hands as they watched me pass. While my logical side told me they were probably just laughing at a silly inside joke, I couldn’t shake the insidious feeling that they might be mocking me. After all, we were around the same age, and here I was waiting on them while they enjoyed their glamorous life of leisure.
My smile faltered, but I kept going, refusing to let any of the snobs get to me. I had to make enough cash to get that electricity bill paid, and working this party was the only way to make it happen. My weekend diner job back in Silvercreek simply didn’t have enough hours for me at the moment, and my mom was busy at her late-night office cleaning job in the business district of Royal Falls, so she couldn’t take the party job.
She worked at this mansion three days a week as a maid, but Charles Connery often asked her and his other staff members to work his parties at short notice. He always paid extra for the inconvenience, which was great, and snobbery aside, it was an easy gig. Unfortunately, due to the clash with the cleaning job, which couldn’t be helped, Mom almost missed out on tonight’s extra work. Knowing we had the bills piling up, I offered to fill in for her, and Mr. Connery told her it was all fine.
And now, here I was, gulping down anxious breaths with every step I took, silently praying that I wouldn’t lose my balance and drop the tray. Even though the feeling of invisibility in this place made me feel horribly out-of-place, it was also a protective shield. I would only get noticed if I messed up, and that wasn’t a good thing.
“Take a break, Laney,” another maid told me as I finally returned to the kitchen with my now-empty tray. “You’ve been running around for three hours. You’re sweating like a pig.”
“I’m fine,” I said, wiping the beads of perspiration from my hairline with the back of my hand.
She smiled. “I know you feel that way now, honey, but trust me—you need a break. Your feet will thank you tomorrow.”
“Okay. I’ll just get the empty glasses from the drinks table first,” I replied. “They’re piling up pretty fast, and no one else has grabbed them yet.”
She lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “Okay, sure. Oh, and when you finally sit down, make sure you have something to drink. At the last party, some dumbass girl thought she could impress all these rich guys by looking as skinny as possible, like she might actually convince them she was a runway model or something. She didn’t have any water all night in case it bloated her, and she ended up passing out right in the middle of the ballroom from dehydration.”
“Yikes.” I grimaced and headed back out to the main party room. Back to invisibility.
Only I wasn’t so invisible now.
There was a guy at the edge of the room, standing with his head cocked to one side as he swept his eyes over the party. A storm brewed on his face as he watched the revelry, and his top lip was pulled back in a sneer. He appeared to be disliking tonight’s event about as much as I
was… until he spotted me. A small smile curved his lips then, and he arched a thick brow.
I almost had a heart attack right then and there. Tall, dark and handsome was an old cliché, but holy shit, this guy totally epitomized it.
He was beyond gorgeous with tousled dark hair, piercing blue eyes, a square jaw shadowed with stubble, and full, expressive lips. Tall and broad-shouldered, he wore his shirt like he was a model, and he looked like he knew it too.
A droplet of sweat rolled down my back as I met his gaze for a split-second before dropping my head in embarrassment. I licked my lips and tasted salt and blood, and I realized I’d just bitten a tiny chunk out of my cheek from sheer nervousness.
Don’t trip, don’t trip, don’t trip, I begged myself as I kept heading toward the table. I finally reached it and stood stock-still as I caught my breath, pretending I didn’t notice the guy still staring at me from across the room. Pretending my heart wasn’t racing at the mere thought of his eyes on my face.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him push off the wall with leonine grace and head in my direction. The flare of amusement in his eyes promised trouble.
Suddenly I wished I was in quicksand, sinking out of view. He was so perfect, so handsome and put-together, and I was a sweaty, greasy-looking mess. Why the hell was he coming over to me? I didn’t have any food trays on me, and all the glasses nearby were empty. I had literally nothing to offer him.
“Hey,” he said when he reached me, one side of his mouth hooking upward. The faintest hint of a dimple marked his cheek. “Hate to sound like a giant walking cliché, but you’re not from here, are you?”
My pulse quickened, and I felt hot spots of color appearing in my cheeks. “No, I’m not,” I said, wishing it wasn’t so obvious that I was an outsider. But of course it was obvious. I wore a white blouse, black pants and flat black shoes, just like every other staff member here tonight.
“I meant it in a good way,” the guy said, lifting an eyebrow again. Now that he was closer, I could see that he was probably somewhere around my age.
I’d never been so close to a boy before… but he wasn’t exactly a boy. He was already all man.
I swallowed hard. “Oh?”
He raked his hands through his hair as he took me in, eyes sparkling wickedly. “I meant that you don’t look like you have a stick shoved up your ass like everyone else in this room.”
I cracked a smile at that, my edginess fading slightly. “Thanks.”
“Where are you from?”
“Silvercreek,” I said, feeling the spots in my cheeks grow even warmer.
I half-expected him to sneer at that, even though he’d been nice so far, but his face didn’t betray any snobbery whatsoever. He simply nodded and said, “I’ve been there before. There’s a good diner on the end of the main avenue. Kinda tacky-looking, but they have great burgers.”
“I work there!” I said, immediately wishing I didn’t sound so shrill and excited. “When I’m not filling in for my mom at stuff like this, I mean,” I added, schooling my voice into a more neutral tone.
“Maybe I should go there more often,” the guy said, lips curving into a full smile now.
My eyes widened. He was flirting with me, and he wasn’t even trying to be subtle about it.
Before I could muster up a response, he turned his head and cast his eyes around the room. “What do you think of the party, anyway?”
“It’s nice. Amazing decorations,” I said in a small voice.
“You can be honest with me,” he replied, eyes glimmering with mischief as he turned back to look at me. “No one really gives a fuck about party decorations.”
“Some people do.”
He cocked a brow. “Are you one of them?”
I let out a light laugh. “Okay, you’ve made your point.” I paused, bit my bottom lip and looked around. “To be honest, I was expecting something a little different.”
“How so?”
“In my town, a party usually involves a few guys grabbing a keg and inviting everyone else to share it with them in the old quarry or somewhere out in the woods. Or maybe a few beers in someone’s backyard. That’s about it,” I said. “We always hear about Royal Falls parties, though, and how they’re supposedly so wild and crazy compared to ours. But this…” I gestured at some of the nearby guests and lowered my voice. “It’s a little dry and stiff compared to what I imagined it would be.”
The guy chuckled. “Dry and stiff, huh? Bet my father would love to hear that.”
My eyes widened again. “Your father?”
“I’m Hunter Connery,” he said, plush lips twisting into a sinful smirk.
Oh, fuck.
I knew Charles and Tinsley Connery had kids, because my mom had mentioned it a few times over the years, but I’d never heard their names or seen their faces before.
“Sorry,” I said, face blazing with embarrassment. “I wasn’t trying to insult you or your party. I only meant—”
Hunter cut me off. “Don’t apologize. I agree with you,” he said. “Why do you think I’m over here talking to you instead of the guests?”
“Uhh… I’m not sure.”
“It’s because this party is boring as fuck, and you might be the only person in the entire room worth speaking to, from what I’ve seen so far.”
“Don’t you have friends here?” I asked, brows drawing together in puzzlement. He clearly belonged in this lavish world, so it surprised me to hear that he didn’t want to hang out with anyone at this event.
He shrugged one shoulder. “There’s a few people from my school here, but I wouldn’t exactly call them friends.”
“Your school?”
“Yeah. RFA,” he replied. “This is sort of like an alumni party. Old students, current students, their parents, staff members. I’m only here because I literally live in this house, and there’s nothing better to do tonight. Apparently this is the prime event of the month.”
“RFA is Royal Falls Academy, right?”
“Yup.”
I nodded slowly. Royal Falls Academy was one of the most prestigious schools in the country. The tuition fees were something like thirty-five thousand dollars a year, and that number doubled if you were one of the boarding students from other states.
“I’ve heard good things about that school,” I said in a casual tone, trying to sound like I actually knew something about the establishment other than ‘you need to sell your soul to the Devil to afford it’.
Hunter nodded. “It’s pretty decent. Anyway, you didn’t tell me your name.”
“Oh. Sorry. It’s Delaney. But people usually—”
Before I could finish my sentence, a loud crash and a shout from the other side of the room made me jump. I whirled around to see what was going on.
A red-faced man with a heavily-receding hairline was shaking his fist at a short bespectacled man next to Charles Connery. Shattered glass littered the floor around their feet.
“Do you know who that is?” I whispered to Hunter, figuring he might actually have some idea of what the hell was happening here.
“The short guy next to my dad is the headmaster at RFA. No idea about the bald guy, though,” he replied. “Never seen him before.”
I turned my gaze back to the men. Most of the other party guests were staring too; some with amusement and others with open disdain.
Charles had one palm raised in a conciliatory manner, but the balding man didn’t back down. He kept shouting at the other man with glasses, and a few seconds later, he grabbed another champagne glass and threw it on the floor. “I told you, I’m not leaving here until you tell me what the fuck you’ve done with my daughter!”
The RFA headmaster furrowed his brows. “Mr. Armstrong, as I’ve said three times now, we haven’t done anything to your daughter. As far as I know, she’s right here in the ballroom, enjoying all of the festivities,” he said, sweeping one hand around.
“That’s right,” Charles cut in. “Now, I think it m
ight be best if you leave. We don’t want any more trouble.”
“Leave?” The angry man threw his hands up. “I’m her fucking father! I have every right to be here, just like any other parent of an RFA student!”
“Yes, but the other parents aren’t making scenes like this,” the headmaster said through gritted teeth.
“I can make a damn scene if I want to! You’ve done something to my girl!”
“You’re right. We have. We’ve provided her with a first-class education for her junior year, plus boarding, for free. If she stays on, she’ll get the same for her senior year.” The headmaster sounded bored now, and Charles Connery was waving over two male staff members, presumably to escort Mr. Armstrong out of the party.
“I’m not talking about the fucking scholarship!” Armstrong shouted. “She hasn’t been the same since she started at your school. There’s something wrong with her!”
“She seems perfectly normal to me.”
Armstrong narrowed his eyes. “You think her own family wouldn’t notice that she’s not herself anymore? You think we’re just going to turn a blind eye to the rot in your academy?”
The headmaster let out an exasperated sigh. “Mr. Armstrong, Cicely is doing very well. Her teachers have reported nothing but stellar grades and behavior to me. If she’s acting differently at home, it might be because she’s stressed about schoolwork, but that doesn’t need to become a major issue. We have counseling services available for concerned students, and we—”
“This isn’t about her grades! RFA is a fucking gateway to hell, and I’m getting my girl out before you can do anything else to her!” the first man said, face turning even redder.
“Mr. Armstrong, please try to be reasonable. RFA is a wonderful opportunity for Cicely. She received the scholarship because she deserves it, and she’s been welcomed by everyone at the school with open arms. If you—”
Twisted Elite: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Royal Falls Elite Prequel) Page 1
