by Aubrey Irons
She sighs exasperatedly, sitting up and resting on her heels. She turns, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and leaving a little streak of dirt.
“They’re tulip bulbs.”
I shrug.
“You don’t know much about planting, do you?”
“I know I’ve got eight figures in my bank account.”
She rolls her eyes as she shakes her head and looks away.
“You’re not using your cane.”
I’m intrigued that she caught that.
“I decided the Monopoly man look wasn’t for me.”
I catch the smile on the side of her face before she turns to hide it. She goes back to digging little holes, sticking the bulbs in and covering them again.
“So, I’m going to need you to sign some papers later.”
She sighs again like I’m interrupting her from something as she sits up again and turns to me.
“What sort of papers?”
“Papers that make our little arrangement look more legitimate.”
“I’m not going to commit fraud, Bastian.” She glares at me, jabbing the little garden trowel at me. “And you can save your breath because money isn’t going to buy that from me. End of story.”
“Calm down. There aren’t any legally binding papers about being engaged, these are just documents that back up the claim. A catering company deposit contract, some blood-work medical records.” I shrug. “A prenuptial agreement.”
“Covering your ass even from a sham marriage?”
“Can’t be too careful, Texas.”
“You realize you’re saying this to the girl who you drove away and who you lured back, right?”
Our eyes meet, holding the moment before she looks away.
“I have to get back to this.”
“Tonight then, I’ll—”
“I’ll sign the stupid papers, Bastian. But I am not going to lie for you.”
“Relax.” I stand. “Like I said, it’s all above the level, so don’t get your fucking panties in a twist.”
“My panties are just fine, thanks.”
I smile as I turn, reaching for a smoke and putting it between my lips.
“Agreed.”
I light it and turn to flash her a thin smile, just as she rolls her eyes and turns back to her planting.
“Nautical stripes is a good look on you.”
She whirls, her face bright red and her mouth open wide as she reaches back to yank the bottom hem of her tank down over her shorts. I just grin, filing that image of her on her knees with her mouth open wide away, and stalk back to the house.
I can tell myself this is all fun and games, but at the end of the day, I know I’m still doing what I’ve always done with her.
Pulling the strings.
Lying.
Chasing the control like a drug.
What I did to Ana those years ago at the graduation party was fucked up, but I did it anyway. I did it because it had to be me, not anyone else. I did it knowing she’d hate me for it but swallowing that price for what it was.
Funny that nine years later, I still feel like I’m paying for it.
I sang a crooked love song
But the words came out all wrong.
The notes they broke like a sour joke
Refrains that don’t belong.
9 Years Ago:
The chord hums through the body of the guitar, lingering in the acoustics of the empty side-hallway. I let it ring until it fades completely, chewing on my lip and staring at the wall across from the one I’m sitting against. I reach for the yellow legal pad and the pencil by my side, the fleeting glimpses of the words I’m looking for quickly scrawling across the page before they’re gone from my mind.
It’s lunch, and while South Neck High is a closed campus - as in, you can’t leave during the day - you don’t have to sit in the lunchroom during lunch.
I tend to spend lunches over in the arts and music wing, camped out here in my favorite hallway. It’s quiet, the acoustics are amazing, and more importantly, no one comes down here. It’s effectively a dead end hallway - the door at one end leads to the orchestra practice rooms, and the one at the other end is an “emergency exit only” door that leads to the parking lot.
Basically, it’s peace and quiet.
I murmur the words I’ve just scrawled half out loud, nodding slowly and smiling.
They’re not bad, really. I mean, they’re not bad for me being sixteen, with all the overly dramatic, inflated sense of ego that brings. But really, they’re not bad.
I grip the beat up old acoustic in my hands and walk my fingers over the chords again, strumming in the silence of the hallway. The melody finds itself, and I’ve just started to quietly sing the lines I’ve just come up with when my sanctuary is shattered.
The door to the end of the hallway bangs open with a crash, sending my thoughts and the flow of my words scattering. I glance up, and the frown on my face turns into a full-blown scowl as I see who it is.
Bastian, his crew, and four giggling, squealing girls. Dylan Forbes has his arm over Jessica Lamonte’s shoulders, grinning that charming, pretty-boy smile at her as she giggles and bats at his chest. Tyler Van Der Haus has his tongue down some girl’s throat who I don’t recognize, and Asher Harrington has a squirming Cassie Michaels over his shoulder, one hand flipping her skirt up and grabbing her basically bare ass, chuckling when she squeals and half-heartedly bats his hand away.
And then there’s Bastian, pulling Ashley Reynolds by the hand after him as he storms down the hallway. The rest of them look happy - or at least excited and eager.
Bastian just looks pissed, joyless, and bitter as he yanks Ashley down the hallway after him.
They all stop when they spot me camped out against the side wall, and just for a second, the storm clouds around Bastian seem to part a little as that wicked, smug grin teases the corners of his lips.
“Well, well, well.” He drops Ashley’s hand, his arms folding over his tailored dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
“Skipping class?”
He makes a tsking sound, shaking his head at me.
“It’s lunch, relax,” I mutter back, squaring my shoulders and determined not to wither under those dark eyes of his as he stands over me.
“Do we need to have a talk?”
“I can’t imagine what we’d need to talk about, Bastian.”
He flashes another small, dark grin, his eyes ticking over me. I shiver, and immediately scowl to cover it.
“What do you want?”
“To know why you’re skipping lunch. Look, Texas, I know girls have a lot of pressure when it comes to looks and weight and all that, but skipping meals really isn’t the best way to go about it.”
“Har har har.” I roll my eyes, turning and lifting up the Ziploc baggie with a tuna sandwich in it.
Bastian makes a face.
“Oh, what.”
He sighs, shaking his head and taking a step back from me - back towards the girls who are looking at me like I’m a circus sideshow and his friends who’re watching like it’s a funny TV show episode they’ve seen before.
Bastian shrugs, his eyes never leaving mine. “I mean, are you really going to eat all that bread?”
Tyler snorts behind him, two of the girls giggle under their breath, and Ashley slaps at his arm playfully.
“You are such an asshole,” she says, licking her lips and letting her hand linger on his arm.
I can feel my cheeks burn, the anger simmering under my skin as I glare daggers at him.
“What are you doing sitting in a dark hallway during lunch?”
“Nothing that concerns you,” I snap, the heat blooming through my cheeks,
There’s that smug, triumphant grin that’s also half a defensive scowl at the same time. He eyes me coolly like he’s trying to peel back the walls.
Or maybe knock them down.
“We’re going back to my place for a poo
l party. Wanna come?”
“There are still three more periods at school.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“I’m good, thanks,” I say flatly.
“You sure?”
“Quite.”
“No bathing suits required.”
He smirks, the other princes and the girls chuckling behind him.
My face goes red. My fingers tightening on the neck of the guitar.
“Have fun, Bastian.”
“Oh, I will.”
I ignore the stabbing feeling when he grabs Ashley’s hand again and yanks her after him as the whole crew breezes past me down the hallway toward the emergency exit.
“Hey, you can’t go out that—”
Bastian pulls a key out of his back pocket on a red lanyard with “Property of South Neck High administration” written on it.
Of course.
“—Way.”
The door opens without an alarm. Bastian turns back as the rest of them breeze out into the parking.
“What’s it about?”
My brow furrows. “What’s what about?”
“The song you’re writing.”
“None of your business.”
He grins as if amused.
“You going to play it for me sometime?”
“Why would I do that.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Do I need to answer that?”
He sighs deeply, leaning against the wall, looking down at me.
“I’d be a great audience you know.”
“I doubt that. You don’t even like music.”
“Clearly, you’ve been misinformed.”
I roll my eyes, thinking of the obnoxious top forty pop and cheesy radio-friendly hip-hop playlists that are the staple of his parties and the bane of my sleep patterns.
“Fine, you don’t like good music.”
“Opinions are like assholes, Texas.”
“Tell you what, why don’t we just leave it at me being confident that you won’t like my music.”
“And that’s why you won’t play for me? You think you’re just going to play for people who love your music all the time?”
“That’s the plan.”
“That’s not life.”
“Bastian, spare me the speech on the world being a tough place. I’m not sure I can take the irony.”
Something flickers in his eyes, and it almost looks like he’s going to say something when he just shrugs off the wall and turns away instead.
I turn back to my notepad, glaring angrily at the paper and reaching for my pen again when I hear him clear his throat by the door.
“What,” I mutter, my whole little sanctuary defiled by the lot of them, and the headspace I was trying to put myself into to write shattered by him.
“No squealing. About us ditching.”
I give him a look.
“Would it even matter if I did? We both know you won’t get in trouble.”
“Probably not.”
“You never get in trouble, you go wherever you want, and you get everything you want.”
His eyes hold mine, a cold fire blazing behind them.
“Not everything.”
The door swings open and Ashley sticks her head back in.
“Sebaaaaastian!”
Bastian’s eyes don’t leave mine, which sends a shiver down my back and an uncomfortably warm feeling through my body.
Finally, he turns.
“Enjoy your carbs, Texas.”
“Enjoy your venereal diseases, Bastian.”
Present:
Showers are basically my think places. They’re great for that sort of thing. No distractions, no phones, no anything except you and your thoughts hashing it out. I’ve come up with some of my best lyrics in showers, which is why, even though the enormous en suite bathroom off of my room has a sunken, gorgeous porcelain and brushed copper whirlpool tub that almost literally makes me drool, I still opt for the glass shower stall.
So I can think.
Only tonight, and the past several nights actually, it’s not lyrics or songs I’m thinking of, it’s “The Offer.”
Capitals intended.
Although that said, Bastian’s Offer is feeling a whole lot like “one I can’t refuse”, in the Godfather sense of the word, the more I think about it. I could walk away, but I won’t, and can’t, and we both know that.
And I suppose that means I’m going through with it. Somehow, the choices and twists and turns of life have brought me right back here to South Neck, to pretend to be engaged to Sebastian Crown.
Where the hell did you go wrong Anastasia Bell…
I’m going to be Bastian’s fiancée.
I groan under the spray of the hot water, rubbing my hands over my face.
It’s almost a comical situation. Laughable, really. As if anyone would marry his royal asshole highness. As if any woman ever could deal with his moody, drunken insanity. His sullen sourness.
His gruffness. His supreme, unbridled, off-the-rails cockiness.
His darkness and his demons.
His piercing, smoky eyes. His cruelly perfect lips.
His sinfully hard body. The way the grooves of his hips point like a neon arrow to, well…
I take a shaky breath, my thoughts somehow off track from where they were supposed to go with that. And suddenly, I’m thinking of what a man like Bastian Crown would do to a wife — to a woman that was his.
My breath catches as the steaming water tingles over my skin. My nipples pucker. My eyes close. My hands slide down, moving lower—
Angrily, I stop myself, yanking my hands away like they’ve been shocked and shaking my head furiously.
This house is getting to me. Being around him is getting to me.
Furious with myself for being so damn weak, I shut the water off and yank the glass door open. I reach for a big fluffy towel, and pull it to my face, burying myself in it as I groan at myself
Part of me wonders again if I should just bite the bullet and take Tyler Van Der Haus up on his “nightcap” offer.
I’m just starting to dry my hair off when the pounding on the door makes me jump.
“Texas.”
Jesus Christ.
I quickly reach over and lock the door, yanking the towel around myself and backing away from the door, as if Bastian is going to come crashing through it or something.
“Why are you in my room?”
“Your room?” I can practically hear him smirking through the door. “I thought we went over this.”
“Do you have any sense of boundaries?”
“Do I need to answer that?”
“What do you want?”
“Come out.”
Blunt as always.
I pull the towel tighter around myself.
“I just got out of the shower.”
“I don’t have any problems with that.”
The forbidden tingle from minutes before instantly teases through me, even as I try and shove it away.
“I need to go over this contract and paperwork shit with you. Get dressed and come out.”
“My clothes are in my room - my room, Bastian. If you get out, I can do that.”
There’s a pause.
“Well, these snowmen are adorable now aren’t they.”
I groan, my face flushing red. Bastian’s found the clothes I’ve laid out to sleep in on my bed. Including my old, frayed, blue underwear with snowflakes and snowmen on them.
Shut up, they’re comfy.
“I was dressing for bed, not to go out, Bastian.”
I don’t know why I’m defending myself.
“Just an observation. I do like that you feel the need to rationalize your underwear to me though.”
“Could you please get the hell out of—”
“Meet me in the library in five minutes.”
It’s immediately followed by the sound of my bedroom door closing sharply.
Twenty
very purposely drawn out minutes later, I step into the library.
Bastian glares at me, like he wants to call me out for being “late,” but also knowing it’s not an accident. He swirls something brown around in his glass, eyeing me. I do notice that he’s not in sweatpants or pajama pants. Dark jeans this time, and an actual honest-to-goodness button-up white shirt rather than a ripped T-shirt.
“Sit.”
“Really?”
He growls lowly.
“Please sit.”
“Now was that so hard?”
“Excruciatingly.”
I sink into the easy chair across from where he’s standing by the fireplace, a small flame flickering over some logs. The room is dimly lit, most of it still covered by sheets.
“Nice touch,” I nod at the flames. “Trying to up your class game?”
“Have a drink.”
“I’m fine.”
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t a question, and don’t tell me you don’t drink.”
“Whatever, sure.”
He steps over to an array of expensive looking booze on a mostly empty recessed bookshelf.
“What’s your poison.”
“Whatever you have.”
“Tequila?”
My head jerks up. His eyes are locked right on me, holding me captive and forcing me back to that night.
The taste of lime and salt on my lips, the rush of something new rushing through my veins.
The knowing this is wrong, and still moving in that direction.
The knowing I’ll regret this, but not having any idea how much.
I steel myself under the iron hold of his eyes, unblinking.
“I don’t drink tequila.”
Bastian raises a brow but doesn’t say what he could say as he reaches for something else instead.
“Bourbon it is.”
I’ve got my lips pursed tight, resisting the urge to storm down that path he’s insisting on trying to lead me back down when he gives me the Swarovski crystal tumbler with the amber liquid inside. He takes a seat in the huge wingback chair across the small gilded coffee table from me.
He nods at a stack of papers on it.
“You can have your lawyer look at—”
“I don’t have a lawyer.”
“You can use mine.”
“Uh, pass.”
He grins, or at least, Bastian’s version of a grin.
