by Tara Brown
ALSO BY TARA BROWN
The Devil’s Roses
Cursed
Bane
Hyde
Witch
Death
Blackwater
Midnight Coven
Redeemers
Betrayers
The Born Trilogy
Born
Born to Fight
Reborn
The Light Series
The Light of the World
The Four Horsemen
The End of Days
Imaginations
Imaginations
Duplicities
Reparations
Blood and Bone
Blood and Bone
Sin and Swoon
Soul and Blade
Crimson Cove Mysteries
If At First
Second Nature
Third Time’s a Charm
Four Crimson Corners
Hang Five
The Blood Trail Chronicles
Vengeance
Vanquished
Valiant
The Seventh Day
The Seventh Day
The Last Hour
The Earth’s End
The Single Lady Spy Series
The End of Me
The End of Games
The End of Tomorrow
The End of Lies
The End of Love
The Royals Trilogy
A Royal Pain
A Royal Affair
A Royal Wedding
The Lonely Duet
The Lonely
Lost Boy
Puck Buddies
Puck Buddies
Roommates
Bed Buddies
Baby Daddies
Stand-Alone Novels
Lost in La La Land
My Side
The Long Way Home
First Kiss
Sunder
In the Fading Light
For Love or Money
Sinderella
Beauty’s Beast
The Club
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2018 by Tara Brown
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Skyscape, New York
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503903852
ISBN-10: 1503903850
Cover design by Eileen Carey
CONTENTS
THE RULES OF FLING CLUB
Chapter One BETRAYAL 101
Chapter Two A FAMILY AFFAIR
Chapter Three TEACHERS AND TRAITORS
Chapter Four THE WALL
Chapter Five NOT OVER IT
Chapter Six RICH PEOPLE
Chapter Seven INTERVIEWS
Chapter Eight THE TOWN HOUSE
Chapter Nine PROPER GENTLEMEN
Chapter Ten DON CORLE-ELLA
Chapter Eleven MORNING PEOPLE
Chapter Twelve FIRELIGHT
Chapter Thirteen AND THEN IT GOT WEIRD
Chapter Fourteen CHESS, A GAME OF STRATEGY AND ANGST
Chapter Fifteen THE NEVER-ENDING ANGST
Chapter Sixteen VENGEANCE WITH A CAPITAL V
Chapter Seventeen WHAT HAPPENS AT FLING CLUB STAYS AT FLING CLUB
Chapter Eighteen BATHROOM BREAKS AND BRAVADO
Chapter Nineteen THE END OF ANGST
Chapter Twenty THE QUEEN OF CLUBS
Chapter Twenty-One NEW RULES
Chapter Twenty-Two RULE ONE
Chapter Twenty-Three THE SELECTION
Chapter Twenty-Four AN INDECENT PROPOSAL
Chapter Twenty-Five HOOKER
Chapter Twenty-Six NEW CHECKLIST
Chapter Twenty-Seven STRIP CRIB
Chapter Twenty-Eight T. REX
Chapter Twenty-Nine SPRING FLING
Chapter Thirty THE BURN BOX
Chapter Thirty-One CAMERAWOMAN C
Chapter Thirty-Two INTO THE FOLD
Chapter Thirty-Three LIP CRACK
Chapter Thirty-Four THE SNAKE CHARMER
Chapter Thirty-Five HE’S OUT
Chapter Thirty-Six A COLOR FOR EVERY SEASON
Chapter Thirty-Seven ROBOT WARS
Chapter Thirty-Eight THE WOLFINGTON BROTHERS
Chapter Thirty-Nine THE DO-OVER
Chapter Forty MEET THE PARENTS
Chapter Forty-One ET TU, ANDY?
Chapter Forty-Two MEET THE PARENTS, PART DEUX
Chapter Forty-Three FORGIVE AND NEVER FORGET
Chapter Forty-Four SECOND FIDDLE
Epilogue
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
THE RULES OF FLING CLUB
RULE ONE.
If he doesn’t belong to the country club, he doesn’t belong in your pants.
RULE TWO.
Never say the L word, unless it’s loser.
RULE THREE.
No reheating a sister’s old leftovers.
RULE FOUR.
Hos before bros; whoever sees him first gets him.
RULE FIVE.
See rule four; don’t try to date a brother without permission.
RULE SIX.
Minimize couple’s time. This isn’t courting, it’s socializing.
RULE SEVEN.
Act like a lady in the streets and freak in the sheets.
RULE EIGHT.
We don’t pay. Go Dutch and you’re out.
RULE NINE.
Protect yourself. That means your body and your reputation. Know where the camera is.
RULE TEN.
Everything has an expiration date. Playtime ends August 31.
Chapter One
BETRAYAL 101
Cherry
Hey, Cait, I am so sorry to pull the plug at the last minute, but I’ve really made a connection with Griffin. We’re—I bit my lip as my cheeks flushed, and I contemplated what else to say in my text. What Griffin and I were and where we were going.
Was it too early to speculate?
Was I jinxing it by thinking or texting about it at all?
Even worse, how was I ever going to back out of Fling Club without becoming a social pariah? Fling Club had been my entire life every summer since I was fifteen.
Cait Landry wasn’t going to take my resignation lightly. Not only because she didn’t take anything lightly, but also because I was a founding member, and this was our last year.
Our last year of Fling Club.
My last year as a Paulson Academy alumna, hosting the summer events in the Hamptons.
Fling Club, or slut club as my brother, Andy, called it, had been a tradition now for six summers. Six summers of girls running the show, running the boys, and ruling the shore.
But this would be my first summer going against the grain. Going rogue.
Because I was breaking the fundamental rule, one that had been in place from the start: anyone who left the group was cut. And while I didn’t want to be cut, and hated the thought of doing that to my mother, being single for selection wasn’t an option.
I was in love. Or falling into it at the very least.
I bit my lip harder and watched the suburbs fly by as the commuter train carried me closer to Boston and Harvard and Griffin.
&nbs
p; Griffin.
My boyfriend.
My first real boyfriend.
This was the first time I felt like my life was coming together.
Griffin was my reason for skipping out on my final summer of Fling Club. My reason for smiling randomly and blushing inexcusably. My reason for risking possibly being friendless and disowned by my mother.
I got lost for a second, dreading all the horrible things Cait might do to me, before reminding myself that my commitment to Griffin mattered more than one season of parties and superficial fun and conditional love from a parent. Griffin was real world; he was real life. He was my future.
And maybe other couples would invite us to do whatever it was couples did. Maybe couples had better summers than singles, or maybe Cait would accept the fact that I was choosing to be in a serious relationship and show some respect.
Maybe.
A lot of maybes.
A lot of dread.
And yet I knew the moment I saw him I wouldn’t care. I would find the strength to finish this text, and it would be settled.
I smiled to myself, excited that my fling from last summer had come back into my life to share an amazing six months. Not to mention that he was the sort of person my parents approved of. My mother would have to give me that if I were booted from Fling Club.
Griffin was already one of them—us. From a wealthy East Coast family with connections and the right kind of expectations. I didn’t have to sneak around or pretend to date someone I didn’t even like. I didn’t have to have the conversation my friend Betsy just had, essentially a coming out of sorts. No, I didn’t have to worry about that. Griffin ticked all their boxes, and mine.
I put away the phone and fantasized about surprising Griffin until the train ride was over, then hurried for the Uber I’d arranged to meet me at the station.
When the driver dropped me off on Ware Street, at the apartment building Griff lived in, my stomach fluttered the way it always did just before I saw him. I sighed and headed inside, wondering what this summer would bring. I knew where I imagined it going from the moment he told me he loved me.
Griffin was a second-year law student, so I assumed our life would start in New York, maybe separate apartments in the beginning. I could work in marketing, and he would work for his uncle. Then we’d get married and move to a house and have kids, and we’d get a vacation home near our parents and, of course, be part of the country club. Me, running our lives and taking care of kids and going to the spa and hosting dinner parties and helping with galas and fundraisers. Him, working hard to become a partner in his uncle’s firm and needing me to do everything for him.
He already needed that. He was busy and disinterested in menial details like what to wear or whom the fundraiser was for or where the sheets came from.
He needed me. And perhaps, in a way, I needed him.
I liked being a “we.” I liked fitting into the crook of someone’s arm. I liked the way he snored when he was stressed and that he preferred me to do my homework next to him, so he could help. I liked feeling that I was more than just myself when we were together. There was safety in being with him and not having to stand on my own.
My marketing degree was never going to be as prosperous as his law degree, especially when we had kids. I knew that. I liked it. There wasn’t pressure for me to decide my entire future. To some extent, I could ride on the coattails of his. And while it was the least feminist thing ever thought by a modern woman, I didn’t care. I was content. I could worry about my future later, when I knew myself better.
As I climbed the stairs to his fourth-floor walk-up, each step felt like a door opening and a boyfriend box being checked off.
Romantic, check.
Smart, check.
Handsome, check.
Connected, check.
Rich, check.
Driven, check.
Safe, check.
I opened the door with the key he’d given me this week when I needed to drop off his dry cleaning, as he’d had a bachelor party to go to and needed to rush from school to the party. The key to his house. His beautiful apartment with the spaciousness of a loft that was so rare in these older buildings.
But the blush from the mental checklist and the pitter-patter of my hopeful heart fell away as I stepped inside.
A sound.
A moan.
A rustling of blankets.
The annoying squeak of that headboard.
A grunt.
A foot sticking out of the white thousand-thread-count sheets I’d just picked out.
Blonde hair.
A sapphire clip holding the tussled tresses halfway up.
A pearl necklace—real pearls.
Manicured fingers reaching back, clutching blankets and sheets.
A long, slender, tanned back arching.
A sapphire ring that looked too much like Kate Middleton’s.
My eyes darted from the custom-made Kate Spade phone cover on the granite counter to the Chanel handbag on the floor below it to the cream Diane von Furstenberg dress on the floor, and stopped at the way Griffin’s toes were clenching when they poked from the sheets.
My lips parted to scream, but she beat me to it.
She—God, why her?—screamed out in ecstasy, and I backed out.
Leaving the door ajar.
The key inside it.
My heart on the floor.
I ran down the four flights of stairs, unchecking each box until I was empty, my chest aching and pounding.
I swallowed the acidity of my hate and fled to the street, to the safety of being away from them both.
My boyfriend and my friend.
No.
No.
No.
Neither of them were my anything.
Cait, the ringleader of my life, was not my friend. Friends didn’t have sex with their friend’s boyfriend. On sheets you bought.
But as much as her pretending to be my fake socialite friend was awful, his pretending to love me was worse.
I gagged and fought back tears, speed walking on shaking legs and wobbling heels to the corner of Ware and Broadway. Flashes of flesh and sounds of wrinkling sheets and squeaking headboards clouded my mind, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on a bench outside a media arts studio.
Something brought me out of the haze I was in: a sound. Unable to place it, I blinked and stared at the concrete in front of me.
“You getting on, lady?”
“What?” I glanced up to find a bus driver and an open door. I blinked again, unsure what he meant.
“You getting on the bus?” he asked rudely.
“Yeah.” I got up, staggered to the door, and climbed aboard. I slipped my heels off and padded down the aisle barefoot to a seat before slumping into it and staring out the window.
I didn’t check where the bus was going. I rode it until somehow, magically, it ended up back at the train station, the place where I started. The place where, just moments before, I’d had a heart full of hope and a checklist that was complete. I’d gone in a full circle and yet ended up back in time. Single. Lost. Alone.
Holding my shoes and what was left of my composure, I wandered to the tracks to wait. I didn’t bother checking the time or my messages. I didn’t check my heart to see if it was even in my chest, still beating, or if I’d left it behind on the floor of Griffin’s apartment. I didn’t realize how much of me I’d given him until now.
I paced and contemplated until nothing made sense.
Then I called my brother.
“Hey, Cherry. Look, I can’t talk—”
“Cait’s sleeping with Griffin,” I blurted out, cutting off whatever excuse he was about to make.
“What? Who?” It took him half a second to connect the dots. “Oh, shit, seriously? How do you know?”
“I just caught them.” My words had turned to a whisper. I was ashamed of my former friends for betraying me, and of myself for having been so naive. I knew Andy would cal
l me stupid and tell me I deserved what I got for dating a shithead like Griffin, and that I was a sheeple like Mom and Cait, and—
“Oh, Cherry. I’m so sorry. Neither of those asshats deserves you.”
That reaction, I didn’t expect. Andy’s kindness broke me. Angry tears flooded my eyes, and before I could help it, I was blubbering with rage in front of a platform full of strangers. I’d called Andy because I needed his sarcasm to toughen me up and put me on the defensive. I needed to be strong, like him. But instead he gave me tenderness, something I couldn’t handle at the moment.
“You’re lovely and sweet and kind. And you would never do something like that to anyone. Not even an enemy. Not even a whore like Cait. She’s such a phony bitch. I’ll come get you; tell me where you are.”
“I—I’m going home. I’m at the train. I feel sick.” My words were coming out in gasps.
“Screw them both. Let them have each other. I never liked that idiot. He’s like Mom and Cait. He thinks his blue blood earns him the right to everything—clearly. They’re selfish people, Cherry. Selfish and stupid and blind. I’m glad he showed his true colors before you got too invested in him.”
Not wanting Andy to know I felt as invested as I could be, I stayed silent while he shouted and ranted all the things big brothers said to sad little sisters.
“I should beat the piss outta him! Want me to kick his ass? I’ll go find a couple of friends and we can make sure he doesn’t show up for—”
“No.” I sniffled. “I just—” What did I want?
“Listen. Go home and take a hot bath, drink a bottle of wine, and try to get some sleep. I’ll come get you in a week. We’ll go to New York and get trashed, and you—”
“Sleep!” I snapped, finally losing the hold I had on my ferocity as his words landed. “You think I could sleep right now? I’m not Mom, Andy. I can’t just take something and coast through shit like this.”
“Okay, don’t sleep. Try eating a whole sheet cake and plotting their deaths. I don’t know. He’s a douche and she’s a bitch. They aren’t worth the energy you’re putting into being pissed off. I’ve never understood how you were friends with her. Or part of her slut club. Which, by the way, she only started because Wendell cheated on her with that chick from Derby. It’s ironic, because then she turns around and does this to you.”
“What?” I paced the cold concrete, lost on what he was talking about. He’d said too much too fast, as always.
“Cait started that stupid Fling Club to ensure no guys got away with double dating chicks all summer. You remember Brom Wendell, the guy she dated after she and I broke up? He was seeing Cait for a couple of months, but I guess he was screwing around with a girl he met at Derby behind her back. That summer, Cait founded that club, protecting her own interests by controlling the dating scene in the Hamptons for the entire season. Hell hath no fury, and all that jazz.”
