by Ellie Parker
Copyright © 2019 by Ellie Parker
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.
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Prologue
There was nothing abnormal about Eternity High. It contained all the segments of a regular high school: jocks, cheerleaders, nerds. A splash of swoon worthy professors. Nothing abnormal. Not unless you were to raise a brow at just how odd it was for these groups to live in harmony, despite their ranks. Everyone expected things to stay that way and, on the off chance that someone was to be bullied, no one would have expected that someone to be Jessa Renshaw.
Jessa wasn’t just one of the popular kids. She belonged to the Starks. Three richer than rich brothers (Chase, Stone, and Sven) who pretty much ran Eternity High, who caused heads to turn and panties to drop and were one hundred percent destined for greatness. And Jessa, she was their muse. The reason their hearts beat twice as hard, the only girl they’d ever allow to hang off their arms. No matter how platonic they liked to pretend it was, to everyone on the outside looking in, it was clear as day that the Starks were wholly and irrevocably in love with Jessa Renshaw.
So yes, Jessa held the position that just about every girl in the school would have given both their kidneys for. Until she didn’t. One night was all it took for her world to be turned upside down. The rumors started. The bullying started. And Jessa fell from that lovely pedestal she didn’t realize she was on until she hit the ground.
1
Jessa
Vengeance high could have been considered a normal school, as far as normal schools go. By senior year, everyone had sorted themselves into neat little categories. Categories they would identify with for the rest of their lives.
At the lowest level of the classroom pond were bottom-feeders; the kids whose parents made them wear discount store mark-downs. Thin, shapeless, sometimes-matching outfits just in from the Chinese sweatshop runways. The fabric was made from petroleum and made them sweat, which didn’t help their complexions one bit. I had to sit next to one sometimes. I didn’t feel sorry for them because their family had no money; but because they totally lacked creativity. Between the Goodwill and the Salvation Army, you could throw together a somewhat trendy outfit, if you knew what you were doing. They didn’t because they’d allowed their outfits and their parent’s statuses to define theirs. They didn’t aspire to be better, to live, to breathe, to fit in. They were just there, barely existing. When you suffocate yourself in such a lifeless role, you rarely ever regain consciousness.
Swimming a few feet below the surface were the kids who insisted on doing things right. These kids were referred to as schools because they desperately clung to each other. They never stayed out past curfew, their homework was handed in on time, and they wore purity rings—vows of chastity until marriage. It occurred to me that was a pretty good cover if you couldn’t get a guy to want in your pants. Let’s just say, I wasn’t one of them.
That’s because as soon as my freshman heels hit the blacktop, I was a surface swimmer. I even leaped out of the water once in a while, just to keep things interesting. Surface swimmers could only hang with other surface swimmers. It was an unwritten rule, but everyone understood. Even the teachers. Sometimes they were smarter than they looked.
The best thing about being a surface swimmer was the Stark brothers. If they came to cast a movie at Vengeance High, they would have re-written the script just to get the three of them in it. They were more than triplets; they were a single entity of male magnetism and mocking guts that occasionally broke into three pieces, but not for long. People who knew them were careful to refer to them as a unit. To invite one and not all three to a party was sacrilege and would surely mean that the host was bound for Hell. They had that kind of pull.
Luckily for me, they’d appointed themselves my guardians of glory. We had an almost psychic connection. I could concentrate on one of them for a few seconds, and my phone would ring or a text would pop up—from whichever him it was I was thinking about. It was spooky in the beginning, but we all did it and eventually, barely needed phones. We were that in tune. I heard kids say we were actually quadruplets, but the girl looked like she came from a different father. That wasn’t very far from the truth, but it wasn’t exactly close to it either.
The Starks looked like surfers, their eyes the color of the ocean beneath their boards. Blond, they kept their hair perfectly trimmed and worked out to keep their abs flat and their upper arm muscles tight. They looked like they could beat the crap out of anyone. Well, they didn’t just look like it. They most definitely could. I called them the Three Musketeers. They truly lived all for one and one for all. Their personalities were different, and that made them recognizable, at least to me. I had a favorite, but it took me a while to figure that out.
On the other hand, where they were blond, my hair was waist-long, wind-blown and the color of expensive dark chocolates. I dressed casually as a fashion statement; it set me apart from the other surface swimmers. I had green eyes and my great-aunt’s dimple in my chin.
If the Stark boys walked by, it was guaranteed someone would make a comment. They were worshipped like Greek gods, and capable of bringing Hell down on the head of anyone who dared to stand up to them. I don’t think they were bullies, exactly, but then they never let me see anything but their perfection.
Their father, Walden Stark, had made his reportable money in real estate. Rumors flew; everything from drug smuggling to stock manipulation. He was an older, washed-out version of his sons. Alcohol and other people’s wives do that to you, or so I’m told.
“Hey, Jessa, I’ll give you a ride after school.” Sven’s voice broke my reverie. He made American Civ barely tolerable.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Stone already offered to take me.” I pouted the way I’d practiced in the mirror. It made my dimple deeper, just the way he liked it. Which wasn’t really me looking for his approval, but when he got that look in his eyes…boy when he got that look in his eyes.
Sven stepped closer, those wicked blue eyes sparked with intensity. His finger touched my lip and he trailed it down to my dimple and cocked his head at me. “Fuck him, come with me and I’ll explain it to him.” There was nothing tame about his voice. Like a siren, it rang through the entire classroom, causing everyone to perk just a little higher in their seats.
“Mr. Stark? May I see you in the hall?” Mr. Tucker held a piece of chalk and tapped it against his palm as he exited the classroom. Curs
ing and eye fucking students weren’t against the rules, per se. Solely because most of the student body had the decency not to do it in the middle of the class. Sven wasn’t most of the student body. Just like his brothers, he did whatever he so please, regardless of who had their eyes on him. For the normal folk, the tone of Mr. Tucker’s voice was never a good sign. No one moved. No one except Sven.
“What for?” Sven was always defiant with a superior tone.
“In the hall, Mr. Stark.”
Sven slapped his book closed; he hadn’t been near the right page anyway. Like a panther rising from a late-afternoon nap, he moved smoothly out of his seat and sauntered toward the door, his eyes hard on Tucker’s face. I could see the flush rising on the side of Tucker’s neck from where I stood.
Sven walked out the doorway and shut the door behind himself. We waited without a breath to see what Tucker would do. It was like that gunfight in the OK Corral movie. Tucker was the sheriff, but Sven had the golden bullets. Tucker was mean, but Sven was meaner. None of that should have mattered, right? In the game of student and teacher, the teacher wins. Always. Well, unless you’re dealing with one of the Starks.
Sven had his back turned to us, making it impossible to see just what scowl he wore as he strode in Tucker’s directions. His shoulders, however, were pulled back, his steps taken with purpose. The closer Sven got, the bigger he seemed to grow and the smaller Tucker shrunk. When they were toe to toe, eye to eye, there was hardly anything left of Tucker. Beneath Sven, he was nothing more than a shadow and a crumbling voice.
Tucker clenched his jaw, realizing just how much of a terrible fucking idea it was to call Sven out the way he did. “Now stay out here!” he shouted, forgetting whatever it was he’d wanted to scold Sven about. Eyes to the floor, he shuffled around Sven before stepping back into the classroom. For his sake, we pretended that’s what he’d meant all along. No doubt, Tucker hoped Sven would find something more interesting before the bell rang, something that would make him forget to come back with vengeance in the morning.
Sven did. He found Tucker’s car.
2
Jessa
Stone was waiting for me as I pushed through the doors and out into the sunlight. The leaves broke the low sun into stained glass mosaics with the barren branches forming the dark gray line of solder. He didn’t get out of the car, but sat there, tapping the top of the wheel and bending to look for me through the passenger window. He was hard to miss.
Stone’s lime-green Porche 911 Carrera was custom, not even released to the public yet. He went to lengths to talk about it when he was feeling competitive with his brothers. Stone had always been the moodiest, thrill seeker of The Three Musketeers.
“What kept you up?” he challenged me. “I’ve been waiting at least fifteen minutes.”
I wasn’t in the mood for him at that moment. “Sorry. Next time maybe you could walk down the halls to my locker and help me carry my books?” I slung my backpack onto his back seat.
He was the dog with the bark, but not the bite. At least when it came to me. Somewhere between scolding and ogling me, his mind wandered.
“I’m sorry, Jessa. Don’t know what I was thinking.”
He tapped the horn; a signal to move students out of his path and to announce his exit; something normally done for kings and heads of state. Having the father they did, Stark boys had learned their superiority early in life.
“I’ve got tons of homework, so I can’t stop on the way home,” I told him.
“You’re smart. Won’t take you any time to finish it. I want to show you a new board they just got in.”
Stone did the best he could to surf the frigid Lake Michigan waters. His brothers preferred warmer sports, but Stone fought the hardest to be different. Or, maybe he just didn’t care, it was hard to tell when it came to Stone. As soon as the tourists left, he was in his wetsuit in the water, abs as hard as metal, curving the material to his form. He sail-boarded, pushing the limits for attention. Attention he got, of course. There was never a shortage of girls roaring in celebration, their eyes fixed on one part of him or the other; their panties already wetter than the water beneath his board.
I shook my head at him and pouted a little. “Stone, really, I can’t.”
“Sure, you can,” he insisted. His lips were pulled into that smile that showed his perfectly even teeth; a smile that could light this entire town in brightness.
Why do I even try?
Again, his attention was gone and he was putting his Porsche to good use, speeding through traffic, swerving in and out between one car and then the other, owning the road like it was paved solely for him. There were looks of alarm and looks of admiration. I doubted Stone gave a shit about either. He was on a mission, caring only about the end goal.
When we got to the surf store, he was out of the car in a heartbeat, taking his steps faster than I could run. I didn’t even bother trying to keep up, though my eyes never left him.
Hands on his hips, he came to a halt, narrowing his focus ahead of him. For a minute, he just stared, marveled, like what was before him was the most magnificent thing in the whole entire world. Something like a kid in a candy store with a life-size piggy bank at his disposal.
“Look at that baby,” he said, when I came to a stop behind him. He pointed to a glossy black board with parallel lime green stripes.
“Matches your car,” I commented.
“You think?”
I rolled my eyes at the obvious. Stone ignored me, intent upon his newest toy. He looked in the direction of the register and a small scowl tormented his face. “Hey, can somebody give me a hand, here?” It was Fall, and so the store was almost empty. The man at the register looked our way, his forehead scrunched with annoyance.
“Be right there.”
“Hey, if you’re too busy, I’ll just get it somewhere else.” Stone shrugged like it was nothing. I knew better. If he left here without the attention he thought he deserved, he’d make sure the store wished it had been burned down – store assistant and everything engulfed by the flames.
I sucked in a deep breath and fixed my gaze on him. “Stone, you’re being an ass. Behave. People know you.”
“Exactly, that’s why he should be down here doing his job. If I come here, I’m buying. He should know that by now.”
I walked away, hoping if I took away his audience, he might behave better. Standing in front of the window display, I looked out and saw Sven, cruising by slowly. He knew we were there. Of course he did. If I wasn’t with one, or two, I was with number three and when it came to Stone, it was hardly likely that he’d be anywhere but here.
Through the window, Stone’s lime green Porsche stuck out like a sore thumb, impossible to miss. Sven pulled up behind him. His car was different. It was still unaffordable for the entire student body, as well as the majority of the teachers, but nothing near as flashy as Stone’s. His was a more traditional cream-colored BMW. He had more classical tastes, and I liked that. For me, it was still over my head, but I liked how Sven looked in it. He seemed more mature, more in charge of where his life was going. By comparison, Stone still needed to grow up some before he’d catch up to Sven.
I waved, and it was the signal he was waiting for. Immediately turning the wheel, moving his car from behind Stone’s Porsche and sliding into the parking place next to it. I saw him smooth back his hair, looking in the rearview mirror before he got out of the car. He stood outside the car, and I admit, my heart thumped a little harder than it should have. Crooking a finger, he beckoned me to join him outside. I threw a look over my shoulder, checking for Stone. As expected, his attention was nowhere near me. When it came to surfing there was hardly anyone or anything that could compete. Some days, there wasn’t a single soul who could hold a match to Stone and his board.
I shrugged and decided that as long as he had a pretty board to distract him, he wouldn’t miss my attention.
“Hey!” Sven greeted me, a killer smile on his l
ips and seduction embedded in his eyes. It was almost impossible how easily he stole my breath. And even more impossible was the fact that his perfection was created not once, not twice, but three times. I bet if I were to check the statistics, triplets never came out looking this hot.
“You’re just in time,” I said, stepping closer to him and further away from the surf shop. A knot of nervousness found its way into my stomach. So much time spent with these guys and they were still able to fluster me.
“What’s going on?”
“Stone’s buying another board. He’s acting pretty crusty to the clerk.”
“You wanna stay for that?”
I thought about it for a moment. I didn’t want to hurt Stone’s feelings, but I’d told him I couldn’t hang out and yet, here we were…hanging out. In a surf shop. With Stone’s attention nowhere near being fixed on me.
“Not really,” I said and shook my head. “I don’t know how long he’ll be, you know how he gets when it comes to his surf shit. He’ll be pounding the clerk for questions he already has the answers to.”
“That can take a while.”
I laughed a little and nodded my head. “More than just a while. Plus, I’ve got homework to do. I wanted to go straight home.”
“And just like always, he ignored your wishes.”
“Something like that.” I scrunched my nose and asked, “Any chance you could drop me at the house?”