by Callie Rose
The night I had been wild and free, and had taken what I wanted.
“Good.” Mason’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “What about Preston?”
Finn shrugged. “You got him pretty good, but he’s had worse from Cole, and he didn’t report that. I don’t think he will. He might be on Adena’s side, but at the end of the day, he’s still a fucking pussy.”
“I should’ve hit him harder,” Mason grunted, but when I put my hand on his leg, he took a deliberate breath and blew it out.
Then he told the others what he’d told me, about Preston’s seeming veiled threats that he and Adena would be coming after me somehow.
“Shit,” Elijah breathed, concern flashing in his hazel eyes. He sat forward in the easy chair next to the couch. “He didn’t say what? Or give you any idea?”
“No.” Mason seemed to be actively trying to rein in his temper, and I wondered if that was for my benefit—if maybe some of what I’d said had gotten through to him. Then he turned to me, his expression serious. “From now on, Princess, I don’t want you to be alone. Ever. And if you hate that, I’m sorry. I won’t go after Preston without proof, but I’ll be god-fucking-damned if I let anything happen to you.”
Mason hadn’t been kidding.
And the other boys hadn’t put in a single word of disagreement. They’d been universally on the same page, and I wasn’t able to find a good argument for why I shouldn’t have an escort at all times.
If Preston and Adena really were working on some other plot against me, I needed all the support I could get. And I knew this was Mason’s best compromise, when what he really wanted to do was bash Preston’s face in until it was unrecognizable—and hell, maybe Adena’s too.
They had already rearranged their classes to match mine, but now, the four boys were in my life twenty-four seven. Over the next few weeks, they took shifts sleeping over at my apartment, crashing with a blanket and a pillow on the couch.
After what’d happened between me and three of them, I thought maybe having them sleep over would lead to having them in my bed, but they all strenuously avoided that, as if trying to make it abundantly clear that wasn’t what this was about.
That they weren’t using my “protection” as a cheap ploy to get into my pants.
I appreciated it, although I found myself strangely disappointed too. It was probably a good thing not to confuse the issue or make things more complicated, but at the same time, things were already complicated.
And my almost unreasonable craving for the four gorgeous, dangerous boys hadn’t grown any less strong.
They rotated shifts, driving me to and from my physical therapy sessions several times a week, and Mason had arranged for a local mechanic to come and do basic checks on all of our cars every few days. When I asked him if that was really necessary, his cryptic response was, “Better safe than sorry.”
And he was right. It felt like overkill, but if it had occurred to any of us to have someone check my car before I’d driven it at the end of the previous semester, I would still be walking normally, instead of limping through life and struggling through what felt like physical therapy boot camp.
Cole still had to go home every weekend, so on a Saturday morning in early April, Elijah drove me to my grandparents’ house and dropped me off. I had met Philip for lunch a few times earlier in the semester, and he got regular updates from both me and Scott on my progress in physical therapy. He and Scott actually seemed like they were becoming buddies, which I found both adorable and incredibly strange.
Then again, I got the feeling my grandfather was pretty lonely. He had Jacqueline, but other than her, I didn’t know if he had any real, close friends.
He’d texted me earlier in the week to ask me specifically to come to their house though, and I had agreed. I didn’t see any reason not to. I preferred meeting with him alone, but a small part of me relished the fact that Philip could invite me over to their house, and all my grandma could do was stew about it.
Elijah leaned over and kissed me on the cheek when he pulled up outside their large home, his oak and sage scent tickling my nostrils. I turned my head slightly so that my lips caught his before he pulled away, and he lingered a second longer.
We had all been dancing around the feelings that stirred between us for weeks, finding little ways to test the waters, and although it still scared and confused the hell out of me, I was trying to channel the Talia from that night in the ocean—to do and take what I wanted.
Fuck fear and fuck conventions.
His hand squeezed my knee as he kissed me one more time, a quick peck on the lips before he drew back. His hazel eyes sparked with something bright and happy as he smiled at me.
“Have fun. Text me when you’re ready to go back, okay? I’m gonna head into Roseland, but I’ll swing back by whenever you need me.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
I grinned at him. Part of me still hated being chauffeured around like this. The new car my grandpa had bought me for Christmas, the one with the highest safety ratings of any vehicle out there, sat unused in the Oak Park student lot. But not only was I sure the Princes would lose their shit if I tried to drive it anywhere, I didn’t feel ready to do that myself. The thought of it terrified me, honestly.
By the time I stepped out of the car, Philip and Jacqueline had both come out to stand at the top of the steps to wait for me. I could feel them watching me as I walked slowly up the steps, assessing my recovery progress.
Scott assured me I was doing well, but I still struggled often with feeling like I wasn’t improving fast enough.
Philip clearly didn’t think so—or maybe his new best buddy Scott had told him I needed a confidence boost—because he beamed at me as I neared him and Jacqueline.
“You’re looking wonderful, Talia. How do you feel?”
“Good.”
“That’s excellent. I’m happy to hear it.”
I grinned at him. I had no idea how much it’d cost for him to bring Scott out here, but considering I was pretty much the man’s only client, and that he’d uprooted his entire life to come work with me, it had to be an astronomical fee.
If I thought about it for too long, it made me feel like I was breaking out in hives. So I didn’t think about it.
There were probably strings attached to this too, just like there had been to my grandparents’ agreement to take me in originally, and just like there must be to whoever had sent Erin Bennett to Sand Valley to help me.
But it didn’t feel quite the same.
The more Philip started to feel like an actual grandfather, the less his help bothered me.
Families—or at least, loving families—did whatever they could to support and take care of each other. They didn’t make demands in exchange for help or keep a list of favors owed.
When I reached the top step, I expected him to usher me inside. But instead, he turned to Jacqueline, fixing her with an expression I hardly recognized on him. When I’d first met Philip, he had seemed tired and old, often a little dazed or out of it. Now that he was no longer drinking, his mind seemed sharper and his body more spry.
But still, the way he drew himself up, the way his features hardened into a serious expression—he looked almost commanding, and I hadn’t been prepared for it.
“Before we go inside,” he said, speaking to me but still looking at his wife, “Jacqueline has something she’d like to say to you.”
I blinked.
Oh, yeah? This’ll be good.
There wasn’t much at all my grandmother could say that I wanted to hear, but the petty part of me was enjoying watching her squirm under my grandpa’s steady gaze, so I joined him in staring at her, waiting for her to speak.
“I—” She took a small breath and shook her head, making her honey-brown hair shift in the slight breeze. “I—wanted to apologize, Talia. My actions toward you were unfair. I was… biased by my experience with your mother, and you’re right, I expected the same negative behavio
r from you.”
“Maybe if you’d talked to either one of us, listened to our side, it would’ve gone differently,” I pointed out.
It was a little unfair, since I didn’t know exactly what’d been said between Jacqueline and my mom. But I was becoming more and more sure that something had been wrong with my mother when she’d left Roseland—that she’d had a mental imbalance or an emotional breakdown of some kind. And maybe if she’d gotten help, she would’ve been okay.
“I—” Jacqueline seemed about to defend herself, but then her gaze slid to Philip, and she sighed. “You’re right. I could’ve done more. I could’ve taken more time to consider, and listened to your side.”
And… that was it.
That was probably the best apology I was ever going to get from Jacqueline.
It felt a bit tepid, and although she spoke sincerely, I was surprised how little I cared. I didn’t think she was lying, and I even believed she’d chosen to do this of her own free will—Philip might’ve encouraged her, might’ve invited me over specifically to hear this, but it wasn’t like he was holding a gun to her head.
Still, her apology felt like a perfect embodiment of the expression “too little, too late”.
“Okay.” I nodded.
I wasn’t going to throw her words in her face, but I wasn’t going to just accept them because they’d been offered. And I sure as fuck wasn’t going to thank her.
She read my word as the brush-off it was and cleared her throat. “Well, all right. I just wanted to tell you that.”
“Okay.”
If she was waiting for me to say more, we’d stand there all damn day. But fortunately, Philip intervened, putting an arm around my shoulders and ushering me inside. Jacqueline trailed behind us as he led me to the garden out back. I was surprised she hadn’t disappeared upstairs, but she took a seat on her husband’s other side as the three of us settled into the large chairs facing the ocean. Gulls called out softly from high in the air, and the sound of the water soothed my soul instantly.
How had I survived sixteen years in a land-locked state?
Philip and I chatted amiably about my physical therapy, school, and how the Princes were doing. He seemed genuinely interested in them, and although I knew their families all knew mine, I was pretty sure his interest had more to do with the time I’d spent in the hospital than any of that.
He had seen how they were with me, had seen them do their best to take care of me. All five of them had waited anxiously together for me to wake up after my surgery.
Strange as it was to consider, my grandpa had… bonded with the Princes.
About half an hour later, Philip heaved himself out of his chair and dusted his hands together. “I’m sorry to say this, but I have some business to take care of that can’t wait. You two stay out here for a bit. It’s so nice out.”
He smiled down at me before heading back for the house, and I suppressed an eye roll at his flimsy excuse for leaving me alone with my grandmother. It smelled strongly like a set-up.
Business. Right.
I cut a glance over to Jacqueline once he was gone, half-expecting her to bail now that no one was here to make her stay. But she remained in her seat, gazing out over the calm water.
We sat in silence for a few minutes before I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t really want to rehash what’d happened between us again, and I didn’t want to tell her personal details about my life. But there was something I wanted to know, a question she’d be more likely to have an answer to than Philip, even.
“Jacqueline. Who is my father?”
She physically startled at the question, wrenching her gaze away from the ocean to look at me. “I—what?”
“Who’s my dad?”
She blinked at me like she was wondering if the car crash had left me with an undiagnosed brain injury, then said slowly, “Leonard Parker.”
Leo. Everyone called him Leo.
Not that the man who’d raised me in Idaho had found himself blessed with a lot of friends, but the few acquaintances he’d made had always called him Leo.
“Did you ever meet him?” I asked, not bothering to clarify that I wasn’t asking because I’d forgotten the man’s name.
I just wasn’t sure he was my real father.
Her brows drew together, and she sat up a little straighter in her chair. “No. We learned about him after Charlotte left Roseland. I always assumed she’d kept him a secret from us because she was ashamed of him—when she found out she was pregnant, she never would tell us who the father was, no matter how hard we pressed.”
“You never saw him?” I leaned toward her. “Not once? You never heard his name until after she was gone?”
Jacqueline gazed at me suspiciously, confusion crossing her features. “No. Never. We didn’t even know she was in Sand Valley until several years after she left, and we didn’t learn Leonard’s name until after she died. What is this about, Talia?”
“Nothing. Just wondering.”
I sank back into my seat, turning to face the water again. I could feel my grandmother’s curious gaze burning into me, but I didn’t look back at her.
My father—the man who had raised me—had never told me about Roseland or my grandparents. He had certainly never mentioned living here himself.
It was possible he had lived here, that he’d met my mother here, and that he’d kept all that from me. It was possible he and my mom had been in some kind of hidden relationship, and that she’d moved away with him when she’d left California and her family behind.
But wasn’t it also possible that my dad—that Leo—hadn’t talked about Roseland because he hadn’t known about it? That someone else had been the father my mom had refused to name?
Jacqueline had said it herself—Adam Pierce wasn’t of the same “caliber” as her daughter and her friends.
So why would my mom ever tell her that he was the man who had gotten her pregnant?
Chapter 16
I stayed for dinner at Philip and Jacqueline’s house, but I called Elijah before we ate to invite him too. I knew the guys didn’t mind driving me around—they insisted on it, actually—but I felt like an asshole making him wait that long to take me back to Oak Park.
That didn’t ease any of my nerves about having him over for dinner though.
I wasn’t sure how much Jacqueline had heard about the Princes from the Roseland rumor mill, but I was positive she’d picked up at least snippets of the shit that Adena had broadcast to the world. And considering Jacqueline’s tendency to judge people almost solely on their social standing, I was more than a little afraid she’d be a bitch to Elijah.
But she obviously didn’t know that his parents had threatened to transfer his inheritance to his younger brother, because she treated him like fucking royalty. And Elijah knew just how to handle her, how to handle the serving staff and the fancy silverware and all of it. Sometimes I forgot how perfectly he’d been groomed by his parents, brought up with the singular purpose of upholding the family name.
No fucking pressure or anything.
He slipped into the role so easily and completely that it almost broke my heart—knowing how much he hated it. He had been stuffed into a mold by his parents, and even though he fit inside it perfectly now, that was only because they’d broken parts of him to make him fit.
Philip was friendly in a more real way than Jacqueline, and the whole dinner was, on a surface level at least, pleasant.
And I counted that as a win.
On the way back to Oak Park, Elijah fiddled with the buttons on the dash until a sweet song came on the radio. Then he reached over and threaded his fingers through mine, lifting our joined hands to his lips.
The warmth of his breath traveled over my skin before he pressed a kiss to my knuckles, and I closed my eyes, feeling a sort of contentment wash over me.
If I ignored the fact that the queen bitch of school was out for my blood, that I wasn’t sure who my real father was anymore,
that unanswered questions and unknown allies and enemies lurked at the edges of my world… If I ignored all of that, I could’ve just been a regular girl driving back to school with her boyfriend after dinner with her family.
I wasn’t. My life had never been that simple.
But I liked the sound of it.
So for the rest of the ride back, I let myself pretend it could be true.
The twenty-four hour security detail from the Princes continued, and whether it was because of that or because Preston had been bluffing about what he and Adena had planned, no new threats came my way.
I was growing more accustomed than I should probably have let myself be to the four boys’ constant presence in my life. Little things of theirs were scattered around my apartment, making the small dorm feel more lived in than it ever had when it was just me.
The strangest part was that my friends seemed to be getting used to it as well. Dan, who’d never been particularly interested in the social hierarchy of the school, was the first to break down the barriers, talking sports with Finn at lunch or getting into passionate debates about music with Elijah. Maggie and Leah took a little longer to warm up, but over the next couple weeks, I noticed both of them joking around with the Princes—boys they’d once held in both awe and disgust.
It made me glad to see the two sides of my life coming together, although it occurred to me that maybe part of why my three friends were so relaxed around the Princes was because the four boys were no longer treated like royalty by most of the Oak Park students.
That was why I was a little surprised when Finn told me the four of them would be hosting a party at Clarendon Hall on Thursday—their first one all semester.
Back when they’d been the unequivocal rulers of campus, they’d thrown monthly parties in their dorm building, with most students cramming into the main common room while a few hung out in the VIP section in the back study rooms. That was where the Princes always ended up, and where they’d brought me when I’d gone in the past—away from the press of bodies into a private room.