This Hurt (This Boy Book 2)

by Jenna Scott

  Copyright © 2020 by Jenna Scott

  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.

  Paige Press

  Leander, TX 78641

  Ebook:

  ISBN: 978-1-953520-09-8

  Print:

  ISBN: 978-1-953520-10-4

  Contents

  Also by Jenna Scott

  1. Camilla

  2. Camilla

  3. Camilla

  4. Camilla

  5. Camilla

  6. Camilla

  7. Camilla

  8. Camilla

  9. Camilla

  10. Camilla

  11. Camilla

  12. Camilla

  13. Camilla

  14. Camilla

  15. Hunter

  16. Camilla

  17. Camilla

  18. Camilla

  19. Camilla

  20. Camilla

  21. Hunter

  22. Camilla

  23. Camilla

  24. Camilla

  25. Camilla

  26. Camilla

  27. Hunter

  28. Camilla

  29. Camilla

  30. Hunter

  31. Camilla

  32. Camilla

  33. Hunter

  34. Camilla

  35. Camilla

  36. Camilla

  37. Camilla

  38. Hunter

  39. Camilla

  40. Camilla

  41. Hunter

  42. Camilla

  Also by Jenna Scott

  About the Author

  Also by Jenna Scott

  This Boy

  This Hurt

  This Love

  Chapter One

  Camilla

  Under the bed, shocked by Mr. Beck’s words, I hold my breath. It feels like my chest is caving in as hot, silent tears roll from the corners of my eyes. His casual reassurances to Hunter that I won’t be getting the Reed Scholarship replay in my mind as I try to gather myself and make sense of this.

  But there’s no assembling the shattered bits that make up my heart, my future, my life plan. It’s not just the ground that’s collapsed beneath me; it’s the whole world.

  I barely register the door clicking shut again. A moment later, Hunter is lowering himself onto the floor, peeking under the bed as he speaks.

  “Camilla,” he pleads. “You have to understand. You’re all I have, I couldn’t—”

  He tries to reach for me, but I scoot out of his grasp and climb out from under the bed on the other side. I pull on the shirt I’ve been clutching, no longer giving a damn about my missing bra. All I can think about is getting the hell away from him.

  “You couldn’t what? Let me have a future?” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, but the tears won’t stop coming.

  Because he’s been hiding something from me this entire time: he knows about the incident that shall not be named. The secret I’ve been so anxiously hiding from everyone after being kicked out of La Jolla High.

  How long has he known? Always? Mr. Beck clearly wasn’t aware of it until just recently, so Hunter must have gone digging for dirt on me at some point. And he found it. I guess he was biding his time until the exact right moment to throw me under the bus, hold me back for good, and ultimately serve his own selfish purposes.

  I’ve never felt so betrayed.

  “Milla, please listen to me—”

  “What did you hear about me in public school?” I cut him off, and although I don’t want to look into his eyes right now, I make myself do it. “That I was someone’s whore? That’s why you wanted me, isn’t it? Because you thought I was easy.”

  Hunter raises his brows like the accusations genuinely surprise him. “If easy was what I wanted, I wouldn’t have spent all that time chasing you. I would have taken my blue balls elsewhere.”

  For a moment I’m so disgusted, I don’t even have a response. My cheeks are hot, my stomach is turning, and my heart is pounding so hard with the adrenaline racing through my body that I can feel it thumping in my chest.

  That’s his answer? That “chasing” me wasn’t easy? That he would have had an easier time screwing someone else, and what, I should be grateful he didn’t? Does he think that me making him wait for sex entitled him to go behind my back and trash my chances at a better life? Is this some kind of sick payback?

  “Screw you!” I hear myself scream. “I can’t believe I thought you were different!” I’ve lost control of my emotions, and the volume of my voice, but I don’t care who hears us anymore. Let his entire family find out about us, about how Hunter is screwing the nanny.

  God, how could I have ever thought that someone like him could actually want to be with someone like me? I let myself believe that what we had was real, when it was all just a beautiful lie. This is my fault, too. I should have seen this coming.

  “Milla, please calm down. Let me explain.” Hunter comes around the bed and tries to grab my shoulders.

  Jerking away, I tell him in an ice cold voice, “I will not. Calm. Down.”

  I’m breathing hard, and I can feel that magnetic pull toward him, but I know I can’t let him touch me. Hunter has a way of completely disarming me, and I know his hands, his body, his lips, they’d snuff out the anger raging inside me. But there’s no explanation that could justify what he’s done. And I don’t want to listen to the poison coming out of his mouth either.

  “Nothing you can say will make this okay,” I tell him, the words spilling out of me in a furious rush. “Unlike you, I don’t have a rich daddy who’s going to dump money on me after graduation so I can live in ease and comfort. Do you get that? At all? I won’t be getting help from anyone. Nothing has ever been handed to me. I’m responsible for pulling my life together, all on my own. It isn’t some game for you to interfere with!” My voice is shaking as much as the rest of me.

  Hunter tries to cut in again. “Look, you’re right, I know I interfered—”

  “I thought this was special. That we were special. How fucking stupid is that?” A sharp laugh bursts out of me. I’m getting hysterical, if I wasn’t there already.

  “We are special. That’s the whole reason I did it!” He steps closer, his eyes searching mine, as if he’s looking for some softness there, some sliver of understanding. He won’t find it. “This relationship is the most important, solid thing in my life, Camilla. You’re the most important—”

  “Just stop!” I feel a scream of pure rage building in my chest, but I tamp it down. “How can you be saying any of this to me after purposely sabotaging my life? I told you I’d go to UCSD instead of Stanford just to be closer to you! Did it entertain you to have me planning my whole future around you? What sort of sick satisfaction did you—”

  “Please.” Hunter grabs my wrists, and his grip is gentle but strong, his voice going soft, trying to appeal to my rational side. I hate him for it. “I just want to be with you. I’ll do anything—”

  “Get away from me,” I shout, pushing at his chest, but he’s solid strength and muscle, and he’s not moving.

  “Not until you listen!” He’s raising his voice too, now, any shred of calm long gone from this room.

  “No! I’m not going to stand here and listen to your bullshit. I’m fucking done.” My guttural cry does what all the pushing couldn’t, and he lets go of me as if I’ve burned him. “I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to hear from you, I don’t want anything to do with you. Stay out of my life, Hunter.”

  I don’t wait
for his reaction. Instead, I push past him and run out the door and down the stairs.

  The anger carries me out of the main house and through the back door without stopping. Vaguely, I’m aware of Mrs. Beck eyeing me as I cross the living room like a soldier fleeing from a battlefield. She might be lost in her own world a lot of the time, but she’s not stupid—and the way I look, hair in disarray and tears in my eyes, coupled with the room I’ve just come from, leaves zero room for doubt as to what I was up to with Hunter last night. Even if she didn’t hear me screaming at him, the situation is more than obvious now. Fucking wonderful.

  When I get to the pool house, the smell of alcohol assaults my nose, emanating from my very passed-out mother on the sofa. It’s a small mercy she’s unconscious and I don’t have to deal with her mockery right now.

  As soon as I get to my room I dissolve into full-blown sobs, my whole body shuddering. I clutch my pillow to my chest, squeezing my eyes shut against the tears.

  Why would he do this to me? How could he do this to me?

  How could his arms have always felt so safe, how could he have always felt like warmth, like home, like love…how could he say and do the things that he did, and then just turn around and drop a nuke on my future?

  But I know the answer to these questions even as they form in my head. None of it was real. All those things felt that way because I let myself believe in them. Believe in Hunter. Believe that despite everything I’d seen and heard, he was being real with me.

  This whole thing was a lie. Nothing but my own delusion that Hunter cared about me and wanted better for me. That we were going to stay together. That I could trust him. That I really, really liked him. No, not liked. Like, present. Somehow, part of me aches for him still. Wants to go back and let him hold me while I cry because of the shit he did.

  I’m so torn up, my emotions pulling me in every direction. I’m hurt and devastated but also livid, wishing on some level I could turn around and destroy his life just as badly as he’s destroyed mine, forget I ever had feelings for him. But even though I hate what he did, I can’t pretend I don’t want him to solve this, to figure out how to fix things. Kissing and making up isn’t an option, though. I can’t forgive him.

  Regardless of what went on between us or how real it felt, Hunter really is just like everyone else. He thinks I’m trash, a girl he can treat like a toy and then throw away when he’s done using me. How can he not, if he knows about the rumors at my old school, and used them to ruin my college prospects.

  All he wanted was sex. It’s clear as day to me now. I was the one who dressed up his actions as something else, thinking he wanted intimacy because of genuine feelings he had for me, not simply because it’d get him off.

  My skin and hair still smells like him—in the light of my new knowledge, it’s nauseating. I force myself off the bed and bolt to the bathroom, intent on scrubbing every part of me that he’s touched. Which is pretty much my entire body.

  I tear off my clothes and catch my reflection in the mirror. Small red marks stand out on my shoulder, my left breast, the side of my neck…marks made by Hunter’s teeth last night. It’ll be days before they vanish, leaving me with no choice but to relive the memories of how they came to be there every time I look at myself.

  He really did mark me like he owned me. And I let him.

  Under the shower, I close my eyes and let the steaming hot water beat down on me. Maybe the temperature shock will help me think of something else, or at least wipe my thoughts clean. But all I can think about is what we did last night, and then the shock of Mr. Beck’s interruption this morning.

  I wash myself until my skin turns pink, but it will never be enough. Hunter was inside of me, and that’s something I can’t erase. Nor can I rinse away the damage he wreaked in my heart when I let him in. My knees give out, and I sit cross-legged on the shower floor, head in my hands, trying to grab a hold of the thoughts and emotions that threaten to consume me.

  I’m overwhelmed by pain, shock, grief, anger. At him and myself. None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t fooled myself, if I hadn’t let him fool me. The times I spent with him always seemed like a dream, but now I see them for what they were.

  A nightmare.

  I heave a sob, curling myself into a ball as the water trickles down my back. I’m broken—Hunter has broken me, in so many ways, and I don’t know how to even begin putting myself back together.

  Chapter Two

  Camilla

  Some people say they like their coffee as black as their soul. I can’t do black coffee, but I can do a mug of hot tea in a dark room.

  I close the blinds, pull the curtains shut, and bury myself under the covers, still in my robe. But no amount of blankets and walls and chamomile can obscure the memory of Hunter’s bare skin against mine, of him kissing me so deeply that I lost track of time…him thrusting inside me while I moaned his name. He’s stained me forever. I hate that I’m still trapped in this stupid pool house on his family’s property. That even though he’s torn my world to shreds, he still has power over me because I can’t leave.

  I have to get out of here. I have to do something other than lie here and cry.

  My first instinct is to reach out to Isabel, but the second she hears my voice, she’ll know something’s wrong. And the last thing I want to do is talk about giving up my V card to Hunter and what went down this morning with Mr. Beck and the Reed Scholarship. Her pity will just make me feel even worse about all my life decisions.

  So I text Emmett instead. He never pries about my personal stuff (though he does listen if I’m in the mood for venting), his house always smells like fresh-baked cookies, and his good moods are usually contagious in the best way possible.

  Are you free today? I hit send and close my eyes, willing him to respond stat.

  My phone buzzes in my hand with his reply: Sure. You wanna just hang, or is it homework stuff?

  tbh I really need to get the hell out of here, I tap out, starting to sniffle again.

  Bzz bzz. Leaving now. Be there in 15.

  See how great he is? No questions asked, just immediate support.

  My mom’s still snoring on the couch as I tiptoe down the hall. I leave a full glass of water and a bottle of Advil for her on the coffee table before I sneak out the door.

  When Emmett pulls up outside the Becks’ house, I’m already waiting at the curb. He’s barely at a full stop before I yank open the passenger door and throw myself into the seat.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “Just drive, please.”

  As we peel away, I make myself take a few deep breaths, but my chest starts to hitch and I’m humiliated to feel my eyes welling up. As I try to blink back the tears, Emmett digs around in the center console with one hand and passes me a travel-size packet of tissues.

  “Everything is wrong,” I croak, dabbing at my eyes.

  “Did Beck do something?” he asks, not accusingly but with an edge to his voice.

  I shrug. How do even begin to answer that? I can’t tell Emmett about how far I got with Hunter last night and what a disastrous decision it turned out to be, and I can’t imagine sitting here going down the laundry list of wrongs done to me. Hunter is a self-centered liar, a jerk, a user, and he ruined my scholarship chances—and my life. But the anger and hurt I’m feeling will choke me unless I let them out one way or another.

  “He cost me the Reed,” I finally admit. “I’m off the short list.”

  “What? How? Are you sure?”

  We’re in the drive thru line at an In-N-Out Burger, and Emmett puts the car in park and turns to me, shock and anger plain on his face.

  “I’m sure,” I tell him. “I don’t know what he said to his dad, but Mr. Beck assured him that I wasn’t getting it. I don’t know what I’ll do now.”

  Emmett’s shaking his head. “Jesus, Milla. What an asshole. That was your big shot.”

  “I know,” I say, my voice cracking.


  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” he chastises himself.

  The car behind us honks, and we look up to realize the line of cars has moved ahead. Even though I insist I’m not hungry, Emmett orders us both a grilled cheese with animal-style fries, and then we pull into a parking spot to eat. I play with the radio a little, finally settling on some low-key indie rock. I’m not in the mood for anything too upbeat at the moment.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” Emmett soothes me in between bites. “We’ll figure something out. There are plenty of scholarships out there, and you still have time.”

  “Maybe.” I eat a single hot, salty fry smothered in cheese and caramelized onions and secret sauce, chewing slowly as I mull everything over. “It’s not just that, though. How can I stay there now, living in the same place as him, seeing his stupid face day in and day out?”

  “I mean, you don’t have to.” Emmett smiles a little. “You can stay at my place if you want.”

  “I couldn’t do that,” I say.

  “We have a guest room that’s probably collecting dust with how often it gets used,” he points out. “Plus I know my mom would be more than happy to have you.”

  I glance out the window and up into the underside of a palm tree, letting myself play it out in my mind. Living at Casa Ortega would be nice. He’s not lying about his mom being happy about it, either. She’d probably hand me a plate of brownies fresh from the oven the second I walked through the door. Not for the first time, I find myself imagining a life where she’s my actual mother, fantasizing about how different things would be if I was Emmett’s sister. I’d have a warm and caring family, one that could provide financial and emotional stability, who’d support me attending college instead of leaving me to panic about tuition and scholarships. Scholarships that someone else can easily sabotage, and all because…what?