by Cassie James
Copyright © 2019 by Cassie James
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.
For my parents—
Sorry about the sex scenes, Mom & Dad!
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
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
The Replacement
Chapter One
This is a dead girl’s crown.
Everyone is clapping. People who have barely looked my direction since I showed up. People who didn’t stand up for me when Jax humiliated me. Well, they’re all looking at me now.
This crown, what it represents, it’s a curse. It’s power. And one of our classmates was willing to kill for it. Why aren’t people more upset? They’re all looking at me like this makes sense, but none of this makes sense to me. I glance up just to be sure there’s no pig’s blood waiting for me in the rafters.
“Juliet?” Patrick offers me his hand. “We’re supposed to dance now.”
I let him guide me down the steps of the small stage, out onto the floor in the middle of the gathering crowd. I thought they only did the first dance thing in movies. Patrick pulls me close, one hand settling around my waist as he keeps my hand clasped tight in the other. I bury my face against him as he effortlessly guides me across the floor.
“You make a good Prom King,” I tell him, tilting my face up just slightly. “I really half-expected it would be Jax.” He seems to get everything else handed to him—why not this, too?
Patrick scoffs. “People might let Jax get away with a lot because of who his dad is, but that doesn’t mean they have to like him. All the shit he’s been doing to you hasn’t gone unnoticed, babe.” I don’t say anything, but it’s funny how quick he is to forget the times when he was the one being the asshole. “You make a good Queen,” he adds, holding me a little tighter as I bite back a laugh.
“No, I didn’t earn this crown.”
“Like hell you didn’t,” a voice interrupts. I look over Patrick’s shoulder, pulling away slightly to get a better look. Jax’s eyes—so dark and haunted—look at me like I’m the only thing he sees in the room.
“Juliet?” I jolt out of my chair, my heart kicking into overdrive. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Smith is standing in the doorway with his hands tucked in his front pockets. As I stand up to go to him, I let out a long yawn. With a quick glance, I see that Pearl is still asleep, so I beckon for Smith to follow me out into the hall, pulling the door closed behind us. Despite the fact that this is easily the nicest hospital I’ve ever seen in real life, the stringent smell of cleaner still assaults my nose out here. Pearl bullied one of the nurses into finding her an air freshener in the middle of the night, so her room smells more like roses than hospital.
“How is she?” Smith asks, real concern on his face. I work my jaw back and forth, trying to decide how to answer that. Pearl is Pearl—dying doesn’t seem to be changing that. Despite the doctors’ concerns about the fall she took, she was still lucid all night. Lucid enough to warn me that she didn’t want me sharing details of her condition. The paranoia was in full swing.
Knowing we can’t stand here in silence forever, I cave and tell him, “The doctors are worried. They don’t want her to go home, they want her to go to a long-term care place.”
“If that’s what they think is best—”
I shake my head hard, cutting him off. “No. Absolutely not.” The idea of sending her into one of those sterile, lifeless places makes me sick to my stomach. I haven’t broached the subject with Pearl herself, yet, but I’m sure she’ll agree. She’s guarded Lexington Estate with her life, and that’s the only place I’m taking her when she leaves here.
Regardless of how not warm and fuzzy the two of us are together, Pearl is family, and family is supposed to take care of family. I didn’t have that growing up, so there’s no way in hell I’m giving it up now. For all the flaws in our relationship, Pearl let me come home. Now, I want to do the same for her.
Smith’s easygoing expression falters as I blink out a few stray tears. This has all been too much. Twelve hours ago, I was wearing a prom dress and trying to figure out how the hell I ended up becoming the stand-in Prom Queen. Now, I’m standing in the middle of a hospital in oversized sweatpants and a gift shop t-shirt that I got last night from one of the nurses that took pity on me. I’m just so, so tired of feeling like I can never quite get my footing here.
“Hey, don’t do that.” Smith grabs me around the waist to tug me close to him, letting me bury my face in his chest. This is starting to become a habit; it’s the same thing I did last night with Patrick.
“This sucks.” The words come out muffled, but he must get the gist of it, because he strokes my back and shushes me.
“It’s gonna be alright, Jules.” His voice cracks, which just breaks my heart all over again. I hate that my hurt is hurting him, too. “Whatever you want to do, I’ll help you figure it out.” He pauses for a moment before he adds, “We all will.”
I fist his shirt in my hand, struggling to hold back a wave of fresh tears threatening to come. Why does he have to be the sweetest boy in the whole world? It’s crazy this is the same guy who grabbed me so hard I bruised and blew pot in my face the first few times we met. I take several deep, calming breaths before I can talk again.
I pull back and look in those damn baby blues of his. “I told you all not to come,” I remind him. That was the first thing I told them last night when Headmaster Dupont interrupted our prom to tell me Pearl had fallen and was on her way to the hospital.
“Last night, I figured you were right because I’d be more in the way than anything, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I wanted to check on you.” He kisses my temple.
“Thank you.” I still have a fistful of his shirt, so I use it to pull him in, planting a long kiss on his lips. It’s a hospital, I’m not interested in getting too frisky, but when his lips part I indulge for a minute. Pulling away only when I hear squeaking footsteps sound like they’re heading our way.
I step away from him just in time to greet the same nurse who brought me clothes last night. Her eyes dart between Smith and I, a soft smile crossing over her face as she clearly takes stock in what was happening. She stops a couple feet away from us, a polite distance away but still close enough to talk without anyone else overhearing. Not that there’s really an abundance of foot traffic. Add it to the list of differences between my old life and my new: Patience’s closest hospital is a hell of a lot nicer than anything within at least an hour of Nikon Park.
“Sorry to interrupt,” the nurse says with a coy smile. “But my shift is ending and I wanted to check in one last time before I go.”
“Everything is good, thank you.” I lean into Smith,
the gesture so natural I barely notice I’m doing it. The nurse notices, though, the skin around her eyes crinkling as she looks at us with something like relief.
“Good. I’m glad you finally have some company. The doctor should be coming around soon, he was hoping to see your aunt first thing.” Yeah, because she pitched a bitch fit last night when she had to wait more than thirty minutes for the on-call doctor to make it to her.
At least the nurse’s reaction to seeing me with Smith makes more sense now. She’s hoping I won’t be alone when the doctor comes around this time. I don’t need to correct her assumption, but there’s no way Smith can be here for that. Pearl would climb right out of that hospital bed and wring my neck if she knew a Harrington might hear about how sick she is.
“Great. Thank you. And thank you again for the clothes, too.” God, how many freaking times am I going to thank this woman?
“No problem, sweetie. I’ll just pop in and check on Pearl again, then be on my way.” She tells us goodbye and quietly lets herself into my great aunt’s room. I’m sure Pearl will be wondering where I disappeared to, but I’m not ready to go back in there. Not just yet.
Smith nods toward the elevator. “Can I buy you a quick coffee? We can go right downstairs to the cafeteria,” he adds when I tense up.
“A coffee sounds good,” I admit, nodding now that I know he’s not asking me to go further than an elevator ride away. I slept like crap last night. I’m sure I’ll need coffee to get through this day, even if it is just a weak cup from a hospital cafeteria. Beggars can’t be choosers.
We take a quiet trip downstairs where we drink coffee in silence, sitting at a table by the window so I can look out at the rest of the world. It’s funny how last night, when I got the news about Pearl, my whole world seemed to stop—but everyone else kept moving. There was no one else to call, and that makes me sad. It makes me think about how if I hadn’t ended up in Patience, Pearl would be completely alone. She has no other family and no friends from what I can tell. The only person she ever really talks about is Hollis, and he’s been gone for a decade. What a lonely life to have lived.
It’s not until we’re on our way back up that I catch Smith looking at me intently. He thinks I don’t notice because I’m not facing him, but I can see his reflection in the elevator walls.
“What?” I ask, turning to look at him head-on.
“Juliet.” He wraps an arm around my waist and drags me in so that we’re chest to chest. “I—” Whatever he was about to say gets cut short as the elevator doors open one floor before ours and a couple steps on. They step to the far side of the elevator, leaving as much room between us as they can in such a tight space.
“You, what?” I try to ask, but Smith shakes his head, warily eyeing the other people. I guess whatever he was going to say couldn’t have been too important, then.
He puts his hand on my lower back as we step off on the next floor. It feels like someone is tying weights to my ankles the closer we get to Pearl’s room. I wish I didn’t have to go back in there, but I know I do. We stop just outside the view of her open doorway to say our goodbyes.
And by say our goodbyes, I definitely mean kissing. So much kissing. More kissing than is probably appropriate for the middle of a hospital. I let myself just enjoy the moment, his tongue swiping mine carefully as if I’m fragile, and right now maybe I am. When Smith pulls away—he pulls away before I do—I’m half-tempted to drag him back to me. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes me tight, offering me one last moment of comfort.
“Will you please call me if you need anything?” he asks when he pulls away.
I nod, even though I know I won’t. As happy as I am that Smith came, I don’t want to burden anyone.
“Juliet,” he says my name in a warning growl. It’s like he read my mind. “I’m serious.”
“Okay,” I cave, hoping like hell that I just won’t need anything. Smith, for someone that seemed so desperate to play the role of a bad boy when I met him, is actually a closet sweetheart.
Speaking of sweethearts… “Did you get ahold of Ace?” I ask. He left early last night before the call about Pearl came in. Something about a newborn horse that I didn’t quite understand. Until Patrick explained it to me last night, I hadn’t even known that Ace’s family owned a lucrative horse farm on the outskirts of Patience. I can’t remember ever even seeing a horse in real life, but apparently the Van Dorens own millions of dollars worth of them—which is pretty much unfathomable to me.
“Jax went by there last night to tell him in between Prom and Allie’s after-party.”
My shoulders go tense. Of all the people that could have gone by there, why did it have to be the one person I don’t trust in the least? Jax blackmailed Ace before, so I’m sure he wasn’t Ace’s first choice for news delivery, either. Dammit.
“What?” Smith asks, noticing my unease.
“Could you maybe just double-check that Ace knows?” The unspoken part of my sentence hangs in the air between us. I know Jax is Smith’s friend, but he has to realize that Jax has been nothing but nasty to me since I showed up. It isn’t such a stretch for me to not quite trust him.
“I know you think Jax is always the bad guy but—”
“Please,” I interrupt. “Just double-check. I don’t want to have this argument with you again. Not here and not right now.” It’s the same argument we keep coming back to time and again. Smith’s loyalty is always with Jax, and for some reason he thinks I should trust him, too. Even when Jax has given me every reason to believe he doesn’t have my best interests at heart.
“I will. Of course I will.” He leans in for a last kiss, a short peck that doesn’t last nearly long enough. But it’s time for Smith to go.
I watch him leave, waving one last time as he disappears into an elevator at the end of the hall. After one more minute to compose myself again, I step into Pearl’s room. I’m surprised to find her sitting up and completely alert. Based on the look in her eyes, I’m not so sure I got away with Smith being here after all.
“With all the boys coming around trying to sniff under your tail the last few months, I’d really hoped that Harrington boy wouldn’t come out on top.” She heaves a deep sigh as I gawk at her ashen face. Did she seriously just imply that my guys are dogs trying to sniff my ass? Good god, where has her filter gone?
“I like Smith,” I say carefully. “And I like the other boys, too.”
Pearl gives me a knowing look. “Yes, I’m sure any warm-blooded young woman would. You know, I had more than one boyfriend at a time when I was your age.”
“Really?” Picturing Pearl with even one boyfriend feels like a stretch, but there’s nothing to suggest she’s saying it to make a dig at me. I thought my arrangement with the guys was going largely unnoticed, especially considering we haven’t worked the kinks out—no pun intended—but apparently Pearl has caught on to more than I realized.
“And a girlfriend, too,” she says with a nod, looking awfully damn proud of herself when I choke on my own spit. Now she’s definitely got my full attention.
“What happened?”
“Life.” She heaves another one of her long sighs. “The world was even crueler then than it is now. My lady love couldn’t handle the heat and then jealousy started to tear at my two young men until they both jumped out of the frying pan as well.”
My heart aches for her, trying to picture a young Pearl heartbroken not once, but three times, and all within that one relationship. Is that the inevitable end for me, too? By not wanting to choose between the boys who have captured my heart, am I ultimately destined to lose all of them? The thought makes my heart pound harder and sweat break out along my hairline. The last thing I want is to fall for these guys only to lose them.
I already lost Jake. I don’t want to lose anyone else.
“Stay in Patience, Juliet.” Pearl is starting to blink sleepily now. I don’t know that she’ll be able to stay awake much longer. Her head has already star
ted to sink back against her pillow.
“I’m not going anywhere, I’m right here,” I reassure her.
She shakes her head slightly. “Stay in Patience because you’re a queen here. They’ll let you make the rules. It can’t be guaranteed elsewhere.” I smile and nod, trying to offer some comfort to her by agreeing with her. If I’m being honest, I have no idea what she’s talking about. I’m assuming she means I’m a Prom Queen here, but I think she’s grossly overestimating how much power that affords me to be openly unconventional.
Pearl dozes for a while as I sit quietly by her bedside, still turning her words over in my head. It’s strange she wouldn’t warn me away from dating more than one person considering how her own relationships turned out. She didn’t give me as much shit about Smith as I expected either, though to be fair she still seems a little delirious. And maybe that’s just the explanation for all of it. She’s not in her right mind. Hell, for all I know she completely made up the little story about dating multiple people.
She’s on pain medication because the fall she took twisted her arm up pretty bad. That’s probably just making her a little unstable in the mind. I need to get her out of here, get her back home where she can get her wits about her again. A concept which proves to be more difficult than I planned when the doctor shows up.
“There are some great facilities, with resources far beyond what you’re able to offer her at home.” I can tell from his voice that he’s getting exasperated with me, but I don’t back down.
“As I told you last night, I’m taking her home. Lexington Estate has been her home her whole life. No one gets to steal that from her now.” Especially not when it means going to some sterile place that’s basically just a hospital with a different name. I don’t care how nice the long-term care facilities are, there’s still just glorified hospitals. Pearl is not spending the end of her life in a hospital. Not on my watch.