The Proxy: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (The Thorns of Rosewood Book 2)

by Cassie James

  I can’t keep the bite out of my voice as I ask, “If not now, when?”

  “Never?” She asks, and though she laughs as she says it, it doesn’t lessen the blow. It feels like a punch in the goddamn gut.

  I sag heavily against the wall as the implications of the one-word answer nearly bowl me over. Fuck it. “Piper, I get it, I fucked up, badly. But how can you forgive Tyler and Jude but not me? They pulled the same shit. Giving you the cold shoulder after sex. And yeah, I did it, too, but in my defense—you can’t just bring up another guy when you’re laying next to the one you just slept with!”

  Her eyes and mouth both go wide like she has no idea how to respond.

  Now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop the surge of words bursting out of me. “I was an asshole for not letting you finish your whole thought that night on the beach, but there was no way I could know—”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” She tries to hold a hand up for me to stop but I can’t. This can’t wait. She has to hear this now because I’m not sure when I’ll have another chance or even have the nerve.

  “Reading that you thought you could be falling in love with me after I sent that stupid fucking email out? That gutted me, Pi. I know I should never have let my jealousy get to me like that in the first place, that I let it get in the way of what could’ve been a really good relationship—but you have to believe that I am so fucking sorry.”

  “Brennan, stop!” she shouts in my face, her body crumpling as she drops her head into her hands. She’s shaking, and I want to comfort her, to take the few steps I would need to gather her into my arms. But I can tell that’s not what she wants right now.

  I rub my jaw, trying to release some of the tension there, before I tell her, “I’m sorry that I can’t ever get anything right with you, Piper.”

  “We had sex?”

  The question’s so unexpected that I automatically respond. “Would you rather pretend it didn’t happen?” But then a sudden realization hits me. When I sent Piper’s log out to the whole school, I’d conveniently left out the intimate details that involved me. If no one had explicitly told her we had sex, she wouldn’t know. She couldn’t know what it meant to her, what it meant to me, if the evidence wasn’t right there in front of her.

  “Yeah,” I finally breathe out, but she’s shaking her head frantically from side to side. Like she can’t believe what she’s hearing. “And it meant everything to me.”

  Her voice shakes, and the grief in her steely blue eyes is like a lead weight in my stomach when she glances back up at me. “That can’t be true,” she murmurs, and my gut burns. Sure, why would she have sex with sweet, dependable Brennan? Especially when superstar Jude Alton wants to fuck her, and Tyler Hamilton’s already halfway on his way there. I’m on the edge of saying something I’ll regret when she continues, “Because if it is true, then that means I must have done something unimaginably horrible to you to make you send my log out the way you did. God, Bren, I’m sorry.”

  “No.” I shake my head profusely. “You didn’t do anything to deserve that. I was the asshole. I knew what I was doing was going to hurt you, and I didn’t stop to think that through until after it was already done and I couldn’t take it back. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, and I sure as hell don’t deserve any apologies.”

  “I’ve still got so many fucking questions,” she mumbles under her breath so quietly that I almost miss it. It makes me feel guilty as hell. Maybe if I hadn’t sent out that log, she might not have been reset in the first place. I have no way of knowing if what I did was the catalyst for her parents’ choice.

  “I have an idea,” I say aloud, only realizing something very important just now, right this very second. “Your log. There’s a chance… maybe I could put it back?”

  “What?” Piper looks at me like I’m crazy.

  I nod, really thinking now about how it could work. “Yeah, I could give you back access to your log from before—so you can have all the information you’re missing from the first version of your AI. It could answer all of your questions about what happened before and fill in some of the time gaps I’m sure you’ve still got.”

  She seems to consider it. “You really think it could work?”

  “We won’t know until we try.” Finally, I feel like I’m doing something right. I try to tamper down my excitement as I offer, “We can go back to my house right now and work on it. I don’t know how long it will take, but I’ll work on it all night if I have to.”

  She shakes her head as her expression darkens. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” It fucking sucks seeing how reluctant she is to leave with me. To be alone with me. “Maybe we could arrange something at school...”

  “Go with him, Piper,” a voice interrupts. I hadn’t even realized the bathroom door had opened, but now Macie’s standing there looking back and forth between the two of us. “If you don’t do this, you’ll regret it. You want answers, and I know for a fact this is the easiest way you can get them, Pipes.” Macie glares at me with an obvious warning in her eyes. “But you better take good fucking care of her, you prick.”

  “I will. Of course, I will,” I promise.

  Piper studies me closely, still looking like she wants to refuse, but her need for answers wins out in the end. “Okay, yeah. Let’s do it.”

  11

  Piper

  I can’t help but second-guess my decision when we walk through the door at half-past nine and Ms. Diaz pops up wide-eyed from the sofa. She nearly spills her wine in her hurry to jump up and greet us. Brennan probably should have given her a head’s up that we were coming. “When you said there was a party at the Donovans I didn’t expect to see you until morning,” she explains, glancing back at me again. It goes without saying that she wasn’t expecting to see me at all.

  “Yeah, well, uh…” Brennan looks at me, conflict in his eyes because it’s clear he doesn’t want to admit what we’re doing here but also doesn’t want to lie to his mom.

  “The party sucked. We thought we’d bail on that and come do a little work on our Humanities project since it’s still early.” I offer up a pleasant smile and hope like hell it’s a good enough excuse. Now that I’m here, I desperately want to get my hands on the rest of that log. If Ms. Diaz decides it’s too late for me to be over here unannounced, who knows when I’ll get another chance.

  She raises one eyebrow that lets me know she isn’t quite buying my story, but thank fuck, she lets it go. “Door open,” she reminds Brennan. I feel my face get hot as Brennan’s cheeks go red. Pretty sure we’re both equally embarrassed by the implication.

  He tugs my hand to pull me down the hallway, leaving his mother smirking after us. She’s probably just glad to see that I’m not holding a grudge for what her son did to me. I mean, I still am, but she obviously wouldn’t know that since I’m showing up here like this. When we get to Brennan’s room, he pushes his door until it’s open just a crack. Not technically closed, but also definitely not what his mother meant. I roll my eyes as he takes a seat at his desk and points me toward the bed.

  “I didn’t realize your mother is so…” I wave my hand in the air, not sure what words I’m looking for to describe Ms. Diaz without being offensive. Brennan jerks his laptop from the desk and rolls the chair toward his bed, propping his legs on the mattress next to me. He quirks an eyebrow in question as he pulls the laptop open and begins powering it up. “Involved?” I finally offer, and he actually scoffs.

  “I think the word you’re looking for is overbearing.”

  “No.” I shake my head, but then second-guess myself when seconds later his mom pushes the door open and peeks her head inside with a scowl.

  “Door open, Brennan. Don’t make me tell you again.”

  He twists halfway around in the chair to level a half-hearted glare in his mother’s direction. “It was open!”

  “You know that’s not what I meant.” She shakes her head in exasperation. She turns to go, but I swear as she d
oes I hear her mutter, “teenagers,” under her breath. She knocks twice on the doorframe as she exits, humming on her way out.

  “See?” Brennan says with a pinched expression. “Overbearing.”

  “No,” I correct him, “she just cares about you. It’s different.”

  He makes a noncommittal sound, which doesn’t surprise me. Of course he doesn’t want to sit around talking about his mother. What kind of teenage guy does? I sit quietly as he works, muttering under his breath to himself as he does whatever it is he needs to do to give me back my memories. I’m just about to ask what’s taking so long when something inside me suddenly feels very funny. I press a hand to my stomach, trying to settle the nerves, but then I realize it’s not nerves at all.

  “All done,” Brennan says quietly.

  I look up at him, our eyes locking as I let myself access the log he’s uploaded to my internal storage. As I start trying to process the data, a wave of exhaustion overcomes me. I lean back, bracing myself on my arms as the weight of all this new information settles. It’s just too much. Way too much.

  I snap forward again, cutting myself off with a desperation I never expected to feel. It’s like watching a fast-forwarded replay through 2.0’s life. Every experience, every emotion, I’m forced to feel it all again. And now I’m struggling to make sense of all that I made it through before I needed the break. It’s so fucking overwhelming, but it’s also like things finally start falling into place. It’s like I was incomplete without this.

  Because you were, dumbass. I push the inner sarcasm away and focus instead on singling out all instances of Brennan in 2.0’s memories. One thing at a time is much easier to deal with than the whole onslaught. Not by much, though. Not when I relive what it was like to have sex with Brennan and then to watch myself mention Jude like an asshole. It doesn’t matter that I was trying to say something nice, it was just a stupid, simple mistake. I can’t believe 2.0 could be so dense. She really fucked things up for us on that one.

  There’s a lot of other stuff involving Brennan, too. The way I noticed he started acting different after I slept with Tyler. Jealousy. I know that’s what it is. I look for other examples of it and get so overwhelmed I have to shut it all down again. There are too many examples to weed through right now, not just with Brennan but with all of them. Moments that I didn’t seem to understand then, but that I definitely can analyze now. They’re all so goddamn jealous of one another.

  I’m still trying to come to terms with that when an alarming thought hits me. “Oh my god.”

  “What?” Brennan asks, his own eyes widening. He reaches out to put a hand on my leg, and it nearly makes me forget what I was going to say. But I can’t. This new realization—it’s far too important to forget about just because my teenage hormones have decided now’s a good time to kick back in.

  “Brennan, what’s going to happen when Stan finds out I know all of this stuff now? What if he tells Jackie?” Knowing what I know now, there’s no more wondering whether she’d reset me again. It’s clear she absolutely would. God, but what’s the point of even trying if she can just reset me over and over again on a whim? At what point will I stop feeling this inner drive to figure things out for myself? Or at what point will she confine me to the house to keep me from growing out of the Piper she wants me to be?

  “I have an idea,” Brennan says calmly, breaking me out of my sudden panic.

  “You do?” I put my hand over his, wanting that contact as hope blooms in my chest.

  He nods slowly. “Stan didn’t update your security protocols at all since the last time I hacked you.” His eyes narrow slightly. “Which is incredibly fucking stupid of him—but it means I could easily plant a flag to pop up the next time he accesses your server. It won’t stop him from seeing what you know, but we might be able to ask him not to tell Jackie.”

  “Do you think it would work? What if he just decides to tell her anyway?” I sink my teeth into my bottom lip, afraid to let my hopes get any higher.

  “I’ve seen the logs, Piper. Despite whatever Jackie did to convince him to help reset you, it seems to me like Stan has always wanted to be on your side. I think this really might be enough.” I can read between the lines at the part he’s not saying. It’s not like we have any other choice.

  I let my fingers curl against his palm, our simple touch becoming something more like hand-holding. I’m not really sure I should be doing it after everything I know now about Brennan’s relationship with me—the 2.0 version of me—but I can’t help myself. I squeeze his hand as I close my eyes, trying to decide if I really want to do this. I know it’s true, though, that we don’t really have any other options.

  “I want to do it,” I say, my voice coming out hoarse. “Do whatever you need to do.” Brennan nods and reluctantly lets go of my hand so he can dive back into my system on his laptop. I sit quietly, trying to ignore the weird sensation of him messing with my insides, and think about what this means.

  Deep down, I have to believe that Stan will honor the request. Because if not, we’re facing the worst possible scenario, that Jackie Hawthorne is going to win. I can’t let that happen. Not even over my dead body.

  12

  Piper

  “It’s done. I created multiple flags, that way Stan gets a heads-up that you know everything now and that you object to any more resets.” Brennan looks at me, a soft expression on his face as if he wishes he could do more. I believe it, too, that he would do anything if he thought it would help me. This goes way past just making up for the shitty things he’s done.

  A rush of emotion wells up inside of me, urging me forward as I stand, my eyes meeting Brennan’s as he tilts his head back to look up at me. With trembling hands, I close his laptop and toss it onto the bed behind me. It would be so easy to second-guess this, but I know deep down it’s what we both want—what we both need. I stroke my thumb across his cheek as I lean in. I brush my lips to his, testing the feeling out, then pull back. I know from my logs how it felt before, but this still feels like kissing someone for the very first time. I press my fingertips to my lips, savoring the way they tingle with pleasure from that brief touch.

  Brennan’s eyes sink closed as he wraps an arm around my waist and tugs me down into his lap, his lips crashing back against mine as I settle against him.

  My mind goes completely blank for the first time since waking up as he nibbles and sucks my bottom lip until I’m moaning into his mouth. My fingers find their way into his hair somehow, holding his head to me as if I never want him to stop kissing me. Because I don’t. His hands rest on my hips, fingers drawing lazy shapes that drive me crazy while he takes his time kissing me right.

  I suddenly don’t feel nearly close enough. His hands fall away instantly when I stand, but that doesn’t last for long when I throw a leg over his, kissing him harder as I sink down, attempting to straddle him. I mutter under my breath when the skirt of my dress keeps me from spreading my legs far enough to straddle him completely. With a huff, I yank the material up a few more precious inches.

  “Piper, what are you—” I kiss him again, swallowing his protests.

  He runs his hands up my back, giving me goosebumps as I try to press impossibly closer. “Please touch me,” I whisper, feeling like I might burst if he doesn’t put his hands on me for real. I need more than just his hands grazing my back.

  Brennan doesn’t say anything, but he swallows hard and lets his hands slide around to the front of me, his thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts. I let out what I think is a low whimper, but then Brennan’s eyes widen. “Shh.” He puts one hand behind my head to drag my mouth back to his, shutting me up in the best possible way. His other hand inches higher, palming the weight of my breast in his hand. Yes.

  “Brennan, it’s getting late,” Ms. Diaz’s voice floats down the hall. We scramble away from one another frantically, my legs shaking as I throw myself back onto the bed and run a hand over my hair in a half-assed attempt to smooth it do
wn. We’re only sort of settled when she sticks her head in the doorway and eyes us warily. “You probably ought to get Piper home soon.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  She hesitates like she might say something else, but then just smiles. “Feel free to come back anytime, Piper. You’re always welcome here.” I return her smile and thank her, and then breathe out a sigh of relief when she leaves us alone again.

  Holy shit, that was close.

  I picture what it would have been like to have Brennan’s mom catch us in the middle of fooling around, and a blush colors my cheeks, burning my face as we trek through the house. Even in the dark of Brennan’s Jeep, with the possibility of embarrassment far behind us as we drive the streets of Los Angeles, the blush lingers.

  We’re halfway to my house when Brennan turns the music down to a low hum in the background and clears his throat. “What’s it like? Having your log back?” His eyes flash in my direction for a long second before turning back to the road.

  “It’s… a little overwhelming,” I admit.

  I look at him, studying the way he winces—as if he feels guilty, because I’m sure he does. He feels fully responsible for what happened to me. Having my log now, though, I can say with some certainty that Brennan’s email was not actually the catalyst for my reset. The problem was me. I recall Halloween, the way Jackie forced me into her daughter’s costume from the year before. She was already starting to crack even then. My reset was inevitable.

  “Bren, she was always going to reset me. You’ve seen the log, you have to know that. At least now, I know what she’s capable of. And with my log back, I’ve got the advantage of knowing things she’ll think I don’t.” I don’t want him to beat himself up forever about this. He did a shitty thing, but he did it because he was hurt.

  He sighs. “Piper, I’ll do anything. I’ll apologize every day until I’m blue in the face, for the rest of time until you understand how goddamn sorry I am. It’s unforgivable, I know, but I need to know that you don’t hate me for what I did. I already hate myself enough for it for the both of us, and I can’t handle the thought of you hating me, Pi. Anyone else, maybe, but not you.”