Don’t Kiss the Heartbreaker
Billionaire Bachelor Academy YA Romance
Holly Stevenson
Copyright © 2020 by Holly Stevenson
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.
Don’t Kiss the Heartbreaker
Cade Carlisle is the hottest guy in school—and he’s also the biggest heartbreaker.
Everybody knows that.
So why did I just agree to go out with him?
Am I dreaming … or did the student body president and hottest guy in school just ask me out?
I’m seventy-five percent sure I’m dreaming. I mean … it had to be a dream, right? Cade Carlisle doesn’t just walk up to a nobody (aka, me) and ask them point blank if they want to go on a date.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m a leper. When Mom’s got me all dolled up with my hair and face done to beauty pageant perfection—I’m more than halfway decent. Some might even say pretty—but thus far, I haven’t bothered with any of that at Mr. Rainier Academy.
I’m just plain old Tia Radcliffe.
But I have a feeling that this date with Cade is about to change everything …
Invitation
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Contents
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
Invitation
About the Author
Chapter One
“Is it just me, or does Oliver Ramirez look particularly fetching today?” my friend Lacey asked, waiting two milliseconds before nudging my arm. “Tia, did you hear me?”
I groaned, flipping my pencil around to erase the smudge she’d caused in my drawing. “Lace, you messed me up again.”
“Sorry.” She squinted and then lifted a shoulder. “But in my defense, you’re always drawing something. Put your pencil down for a second and look at Oliver,” she said, lowering her voice as her eyes stayed locked on Oliver across the cafeteria.
I sighed and glanced over to where he sat with his group of math geek friends. “Okay, I’m looking,” I said before turning back to Lacey, resting the side of my face on my palm. “When are you going to get up the nerve to go and talk to him?”
She cringed. “Um, have you met me?” She did an air circle around her face. “There is zero chance that a guy like Oliver would want to talk to someone like me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why? Because you think he’s not into smart, beautiful girls?” I kept my gaze locked with hers. Lacey was a little on the heavy side, but I hated how much she focused on that, bypassing how completely gorgeous she was with her auburn hair and porcelain smooth skin. “Don’t cut yourself short, Lace,” I said. “You’re the whole package. Oliver would be crazy not to see that. What’s the worst that could happen if you walked up to him right now and said hi?”
She snorted and gave me a “you’re nuts” look. “I am not going to do that.”
I shrugged and went back to my drawing. “Okay. I didn’t take my best friend for a coward … but maybe I was wrong.”
She paused, and I let that sink in as I worked to shade in the side of the horse’s neck. I was particularly proud of this drawing. It was of one the horses in the stables, looking over its stall door with ears pricked forward.
“Speaking of cowards,” Lacey retorted, “when are you going to tell your mom you don’t want to be in the beauty pageant?”
I winced. It usually took her a minute to think of a comeback, but when she did, they were potent. I didn’t look up from my drawing. “Don’t make this about me. You’re the one who’s been obsessing over Oliver for weeks. I’m only trying to help you.”
“And I’m trying to help you.” Without warning, she snatched the pencil from my hand and pointed it at me. “You have got to be at the academy art fair in two weeks. I know you’ll be awarded blue ribbons for your work … do you really want to be stuck parading onstage doing something you hate and miss out on that?”
I snatched my pencil back, glaring at her. “No. I don’t. But I don’t have a choice.” I looked down at my drawing to hide the pain this topic caused. “You have siblings to divide your parents’ attention—I’m all my parents have. This pageant means everything to my mom.”
“Exactly.” She waited until I met her eyes. “It means everything to your mom. But what about you, Tia?”
I bit my lip and looked away again. I hated beauty pageants. I hated everything about them, from the hair to the makeup to the over-the-top wardrobes. Ever since I was a little girl, Mom had entered me in pageants. She was a former Miss America, so naturally she expected me to follow in her footsteps. I wanted her approval, so I tried to follow in her footsteps … I just wished those footsteps didn’t involve high heels.
Dad, on the other hand, dreamed of having me take over the tech company that he’d started from the ground up. The company was worth billions, and while I’d loved the days when he would take me to work with him to “learn the ropes,” I wasn’t into technology development. At all. It was spending time with him that I loved. But the whole reason I was here at Seattle’s Mt. Rainier Legacy Academy (or RLA, as most of us called it) was to learn how to take over Dad’s business.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love my parents. (They were amazing and had given me more opportunities in my seventeen years than most people see in an entire lifetime.) The problem was I loved them a little too much. I didn’t want to let them down, so I pasted on smiles for beauty pageants and enrolled in tech classes, when all I really wanted to do was draw and paint and sketch.
As a sort of silent revolt against the pageants, I didn’t wear makeup at school, which my dark hair and eyebrows slightly forgave. But if Mom knew I walked around without makeup, she would faint. In my academy uniform, I tended to blend in with the crowd, which was just fine with me. Aside from Lacey, I didn’t have a big group of friends and would probably be labeled as quiet—though I wasn’t necessarily shy. I just preferred to listen rather than talk a lot. I was a true introvert, except when I had to don my “pageant persona,” projecting a larger-than-life personality to win the judges over. Ick.
Lacey grabbed my arm and squeezed. “Don’t look now,” she whispered, her voice practically a squeak, “but Cade Carlisle just walked in.”
In spite of Lacey’s warning, I did look up. I couldn’t help it. When Cade entered a room, everyone looked and there was an almost perceptible hush, like a ripple current in the Force. Cade was the student body president, and the absolute most gorgeous human being on the planet. It was like he’d been cut straight out of a GQ magazine, or a cologne commercial, and placed here for the benefit of anyone who ever wondered how airbrushed those models actually were. Cade didn’t need an airbrush—or even a filter. He was one hundred percent
hot.
His brown eyes met mine as he walked our direction. I swallowed and felt my face warm, quickly glancing back down at my drawing. He’d caught me staring. How embarrassing … though I was sure he was used to it. Chloe Davenport, a girl in my grade who was always on the prowl for a handsome face, had been after Cade since her first day at the academy. Frankly, I was a little surprised she hadn’t snagged him yet. She was annoyingly pretty with her long blond hair and calculating blue eyes. They would make a picture-perfect couple. Chloe and Cade—their names even went together. Gag.
“What are you working on there?”
My heart stopped. I lifted my gaze to Lacey, who had her mouth open in a full-on gape as she stared at the owner of the voice—Cade Carlisle—who stood above me, looking down on my drawing with a devastating half smile.
I blinked and cleared my throat, my face growing warmer. “Um … it’s a horse.” Ugh! I wanted to slap myself for stating the obvious.
His smile deepened. “I can see that. It’s really amazing.” He tilted his head to get a better angle. “You drew this?”
I nodded, trying to form a coherent sentence from the tangled flurry of thoughts swirling in my brain. “Yep.” Super profound, Tia. Can you not think of anything else to say?!
“What other drawings do you have in that sketchbook?” he asked, taking the empty seat next to mine.
My senses were firing so fast I worried I might pass out. I glanced at Lacey across from us, who continued to gape. She looked like an ice sculpture, frozen in place with an expression of amazement carved on her face. I had to look away to keep from giggling as I ran my finger down the edge of my sketchbook.
“Oh, just this and that … nothing too exciting,” I answered.
“Can I see?” Cade asked, meeting my gaze with a questioning look.
“Sure.” What?! This. Was. Not. Happening. Did I really just agree to let him see my drawings? The drawings I didn’t show to anyone except Lacey? I’d basically just agreed to let the hottest guy in school read and analyze my diary. It was like he had some hypnotic power over me, making me senseless with his supermodel looks and enticing cologne. I watched my hands slide the sketchbook to him with a sort of surreal out-of-body detachment.
Cade smiled and flipped to another page in the sketchbook, letting out a low whistle. “Nothing too exciting? What are you talking about? This stuff is unbelievable.”
I squirmed as he studied sketches of my dorm room, the front of the school, the stables, and a picture of Lacey bent over a book. Okay, so maybe there wasn’t anything truly personal in there like a diary, but it was still a tiny window into my soul. I felt completely vulnerable.
After he analyzed the last drawing he looked up with raised eyebrows. “Seriously, this is good.”
I let out a nervous giggle, wanting to kick myself for sounding like a starstruck fangirl. “Uh, thanks.”
He slid the notebook back to me and I took it in both hands, clutching it like a lifeline of sanity in this bizarre moment.
He nodded, resting both elbows on the table and making no move to leave. “You’re Tia, right?”
I blinked, stunned that he knew my name. “Yeah. And you’re Cade.”
He smiled, revealing a dimple in his left cheek. “I’ve seen you around.”
Oh. My. What? I glanced at Lacey, who was still miming a statue. “And this is my friend, Lacey Douglas.”
Cade looked at Lacey, and I willed her to close her mouth, which she thankfully did. “What’s up, Lacey?” He nodded at her.
She blinked twice, her expression still blank. “Good.”
Cade smiled as if this was a normal answer and then turned back to me, gesturing to my food tray. “The bell’s about to ring, and it looks like you haven’t eaten much. Don’t you like chicken cordon bleu?”
“Oh.” I looked down at my untouched food served on a porcelain plate with the customary garnish on the side. “No, I do. I mean, I can’t really complain about cafeteria food prepared by master chefs, can I?”
He shrugged. “Some do.”
It was true, but I worked hard not to be a snobby rich kid when I could help it. I shook my head. “I like it. I just got distracted by my sketching, I guess.”
“Which happens all the time,” Lacey supplied, choosing that moment to snap back to reality. “It’s amazing that she hasn’t wasted away by now.”
I gave her a look, but she only gave me a lip twitch in return.
“Well, we can’t let that happen, can we?” Cade said, drawing my attention back to him. “How would you feel about eating dinner with me tonight … without your sketchbook to distract you?”
The air squeezed out of my lungs. “Dinner? With you?”
“Yeah.” He tipped his head to the side, his magnetic brown eyes dancing as they pulled me in. “If what Lacey says is true, I think it’s my duty to make sure you don’t waste away … especially before I have a chance to get to know you better.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “So what do you say? Can I pick you up from your dorm room at seven?”
“Okay.” The word slipped out without my permission. The least I could have done was to hesitate or pretend to have plans that I had to change … but nope. Just pathetically eager acceptance.
He grinned, and I was pretty sure his smile was dazzling enough to be seen in space. “Great. I’ll see you then, Tia.”
“Okay,” I repeated, watching in a sort of trance as he stood from the table, nodding to both of us before heading toward a group of seniors.
Lacey covered her mouth. “Tia,” she half whispered, half squealed.
“Don’t,” I warned, fighting a grin as I picked up my fork, refusing to look at her as my heart beat faster than a bongo drum.
“Tia!” she said again, her eyes going wider as she tapped her feet excitedly under the table and clamped both hands over her mouth.
“Shh!” I said, smiling now. We had to contain ourselves until we got out of the cafeteria—but once we got away from the crowd, I knew I would dissolve into a fit of squeals. Cade Carlisle just asked me out. Me. He knew my name and liked my sketches and wanted to eat dinner with me tonight. It was so totally unexpected that my head spun.
“What just happened?” I whispered to Lacey.
“You got asked out by the hottest guy in school,” Lacey said, shaking her head in wonder.
I lifted a shoulder, downplaying the situation. “Everyone knows Cade is a heartbreaker. He’s probably just running out of senior girls to date, so he’s started on juniors now.”
“Mm, I hope I’m next.”
“Lacey!” I gawked at her. “Have some self-respect.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “You’re the one going out with him.”
I bit my lip. “I know. But it’s just one date. It’s not like we’re going to end up in a relationship or anything.”
“Right.” She shrugged. “So what if he’s a heartbreaker? Enjoy the experience, and if he tries to kiss you, don’t overthink it. I bet he’s an amazing kisser.”
“Nice. Remind me not to take any more dating advice from you,” I said.
She ignored the comment, leaning forward with an eager look in her eyes. “Can you secretly FaceTime me on your date? I wouldn’t mind staring into those eyes of his a little longer.”
I laughed. “FaceTime might be slightly awkward, but I’ll see what I can do.” I glanced surreptitiously over my shoulder, braving another look at Cade.
He was talking to a group of the “popular kids,” but he looked my way, giving me a little lopsided smile that caused a warm tingle to go up my spine. I turned back around and took a bite of my food, too distracted to taste it.
Chapter Two
“Okay, what about this one?” I asked, turning to hold up the shirt for Lacey’s approval. We were in our dorm room, and my bed was covered with clothes. Lacey sat like a sentinel on her bed, studiously approving or rejecting each outfit I proposed. Thanks to Mom’s zeal for fashion, I had a lot of clothes to choose
from, but I never got to wear them because of the uniforms. Cade had somehow gotten my number and texted to ask if I was up for going out somewhere off campus. Lacey and I had squealed over that for a solid ten minutes before she started hurling outfits at me.
“Yep. That’s the one,” she said, nodding solemnly at the shirt I held up.
“Are you sure it’s not too bright?” I asked, analyzing the flowy fabric. Yellow was one of my favorite colors, and I loved this button-down shirt with a floral pattern.
“It’s perfect,” Lacey assured me. “Pair it with those frayed white skinny jeans, the fawn-colored ankle boots, and the gold-layered necklace. You’ll be all set.”
I turned away from the mirror to look at her. “You’re a genius.”
She shrugged, inspecting her nails. “My fashion skills are completely wasted in this place. The uniforms cramp my style.”
I smiled as I fastened on an earring. “Don’t worry. Someday you’ll be one of the brightest fashion designers out there, and everyone will fight to get their hands on a Lacey Douglas original … just promise you’ll give me the friends and family discount, okay?”
She laughed. “I’ll give clothes to you for free. You can be one of the models, since you already know how to do the pageant walk.” She mimicked me walking back and forth onstage, striking a pose every few feet.
I smirked and grabbed a throw pillow off my bed, launching it at her, but missing by a good six inches.
She laughed again. “Maybe stay away from trying anything athletic in the talent portion of the pageant.”
Don't Kiss The Heartbreaker (Billionaire Academy YA Romance Book 3) Page 1
