The Stranger Trilogy Box Set

by Isadora Brown

  Sophie was crazy about Will. There was no reason for him to be worried about Michael whatsoever. She understood him being mad at her for leaving without saying anything. She could even understand him questioning the fact that she went to visit some guy in the middle of the night—again, without telling him first. But the fact that he was questioning her motives and needed to know how she saw Michael and wanted to make sure nothing was going on between them, that was what upset her the most. It showed that he didn’t trust her, and if he didn’t trust her, why were they in a relationship in the first place?

  It sucked waking up alone in her bed, knowing Will was alone in his bed just as miserable as she was. She hated that they couldn’t just get over this. But a part of her wouldn’t let her make the first move when she knew she was right.

  She shook her head, increasing her speed. She was thankful it was still cold out, which just pushed her body to go faster if it wanted to warm up. The cold also helped her focus, and it cleared unnecessary, heavy thoughts from her mind.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Sophie’s brow was furrowed already, but when she saw Jason had run up next to her, she nearly tripped over herself and landed face first in the grass. Jason, her ex-boyfriend, wanted to go running with her? She paused – she thought he had gone home with everybody else after what happened in the basement. Apparently not. He wore sweatpants and a t-shirt, and his brown eyes looked … Concerned? Genuine? There was more in them than its usual warmth, but she couldn’t figure out just what that was. She hadn’t known him that well to begin with.

  The thought made her sad in a way. In all honesty, Sophie thought she knew Jason well. However, after being with Will, she realized she had only known Jason on a superficial level. She knew his birthday and his favorite food. She knew that he liked to wear striped polo shirts just for fun and he loved soccer more than anything else in the world. But she couldn’t read the looks that passed over his face. She didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life and what his plans were in order to achieve that dream. These were things that made a person whole. She regretted not learning about Jason on a deeper level because that was what he deserved.

  Perhaps that was why it did not work out for them. Sophie didn’t think he was worth the effort, and he felt the same way. They were much better as friends—if they could ever get to that point.

  But maybe Jason was making the effort by running with her. Maybe they could finally move past everything that had happened and simply focus on just knowing and respecting each other.

  “Hello?” Jason offered her a tiny smile; one that crinkled his eyes and made the brown turn a shade lighter. Her heart jumped at it; it was his patented charm smile. It would probably always illicit some kind of reaction from her, no matter who she was with and how she felt. “Did you hear me?”

  Sophie shook her head, snapping herself out of her thoughts. “Yeah.” She gave him a small grin and nodded. “Of course you can join me. I’m just planning to run around the fields here. After everything that happened, I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave.”

  “Ah, come on, Soph,” he teased, nudging her with his shoulder. “Where’s that sense of adventure I know you have?”

  Sophie felt her grin expand. She knew she shouldn’t leave, at least without telling Will first. After everything that had happened last night, she knew she should say something to Will. She was mad, hurt, upset, and betrayed, but she couldn’t blatantly disrespect him by leaving again with another guy without letting him know. It didn’t have anything to do with him being male and macho and her being a damsel in distress, and everything to do about respect.

  She blinked in realization. Will was mad that she had disrespected him, not that she had made a decision on her own. Though the two were interrelated, the feelings Will felt stemmed from the former, not the latter. If things were going to get better between them, she needed to let Will know.

  “Okay,” she said. “Just let me tell someone so no one worries.”

  He looked like he was going to protest, but she left before he could say something. She headed back up to her dorm room, hoping Jane might be in to change clothes. She was spending tons of time with Daryl, which Sophie was happy about, but there were moments like these when she still missed her friend. The room was quiet and empty. Instead of heading over to Aqua, she grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled a quick note, saying she was off for a jog with Jason. This way, she could leave without telling Will and without feeling guilty for leaving in the first place.

  Jason was still waiting for her by the time Sophie returned, but immediately shot off for the entrance of the school.

  “Keep up, Harper,” he called behind him, shooting her a playful grin.

  Sophie shook her head, unable to hide a grin. She dashed after him, and it wasn’t long before the two were well on their way off of school grounds. The first few minutes were peaceful. As hard as it was to believe, there was a comfortable silence between them. Jason had slowed his pace once they were outside the academy walls. He must remember how much she hated to run.

  “So,” Sophie said. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Catalina Park,” he said, his tone breezy. “Remember how we would jog there just the two of us after class?”

  Sophie nodded her head. “Yeah,” she said.

  Silence resumed, but it wasn’t as comfortable. Sophie didn’t understand why Jason would take her to a place they shared fond memories of together after he chewed her out so recently. Had he decided to forgive her for everything? Was this some kind of game? Was he trying to prove a point? She didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure if she should trust him enough to let her guard down and forgive. What she would do, however, was follow him. She would let him take her to where it was he wanted to go. He deserved that much from her.

  “Soph,” he said, after a while. They had another ten minutes, at least, to jog, before they reached the park. “I wanted to take the time to apologize for my behavior after our split.”

  “Oh.” To say Sophie was surprised would be an understatement. She wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so she went with, “Thanks.”

  When the word left her mouth, she closed her eyes. Dumb, so dumb.

  Suddenly, Jason’s hand shot out to grab Sophie’s wrist, stopping her. “I’m being serious, Soph,” he said, his eyes in hers. The guy wasn’t even winded while Sophie was trying desperately to catch her breath without being obvious about it. “The way I acted about everything was pretty shitty, even if I had a reason to or not. This whole thing with Will …” He pressed his lips together, shook his head. “Wait. It’s not about Will. It’s about you and me.” He took a step closer to her, squinting because the sun was creeping into his eyes. “I was crazy about you. You were it for me. You were this new girl, beautiful and mysterious. I love the color of your hair, and I love the color of your eyes. I couldn’t stop staring at you. I still can’t. When we got together, I was hooked. I could have married you, Soph. I know how crazy that sounds. Trust me, I know. But I couldn’t help it. You were mine, and I wanted to tell the whole world.”

  Sophie’s insides tightened, as though someone was strangling each individual thing inside of her preventing her heart from beating for a second.

  “I did tell the whole world,” he continued, not noticing Sophie’s discomfort. “But I knew something was off with you. I thought it was hard for you to trust someone again. It would make sense after what your family did to you. I wanted to be there for you. I’ve never been like this with anyone, Soph. I never felt this way about anyone. People assume because I look a certain way or act a certain way, because I have a lot of friends, that I’m a player or I don’t care about serious relationships. I’m not going to lie; I dated around. But you changed everything.”

  Sophie didn’t understand why he was telling her all of this. It didn’t make sense. She didn’t need to know this.

  “When you didn’t come home with me for Christmas, I knew something wa
s up. And when I found out you were going with Will … The thing is, I knew there was something going on between the two of you. There was something different. You guys had this secret look. I can’t explain it.” He paused, and his face contorted with pain. “You broke my heart when you broke up with me, Soph. I hated you. And a part of me still does. But another part of me is still in love with you, and I think I always will be.” He stopped, looking over at the hotel behind Sophie.

  “Jason,” Sophie murmured, her voice warm and regretful. “I’m sorry for how everything happened. There’s no justification for it. I handled things in the worst way. But I want you to know, you mean a lot to me. You were the first person to make me feel special, like I belonged here, and I’ll never forget that. I know it might take a while for us to be friends, but I really would like to reach that point. Someday, at least.”

  Jason’s face paled as he caught sight of something behind Sophie. She wrinkled her brow and craned her neck, like she was going to look and see what he noticed. Jason stopped her with a kiss on the lips.

  “Sorry, Soph,” he whispered against them. “I just wanted … one last time, before … God, I’m so sorry.”

  30

  Jane searched through her luggage for the fifth time in a manner of ten minutes. She had never even been to a small town before, let alone gone to a house party; she had no idea what to wear to Rose’s gathering. It was silly and she was more than likely overthinking things, but Jane wanted to look her best if her plan of action was going to take place. If she and Daryl were attempting to pretend to be married, she needed to look like a wife. She couldn’t look like a teenager trying to attract a guy at a club, but she also couldn’t look like it was Sunday morning and she was dressed for church. There had to be an in between that would work so she looked like marriage material and also showed Daryl that perhaps he wanted her just as much as she wanted him.

  Luckily, her mother taught her the value of always being prepared. Since Daryl had rushed her and they did not have much time to go over what they were packing, Jane threw in a bunch of clothes she might wear but wasn’t sure about. However, she needed to make sure the outfit was appropriate, to say the least, but also sexy.

  “Good God, woman,” Daryl said as he walked into their hotel room from the bathroom. He, of course, was already dressed. “What did you do to our bedroom?”

  Our bedroom. The diction was not lost on Jane’s ears. She bit back a smile and narrowed her eyes at him.

  “I’m trying to find an outfit for tonight,” she explained. “I can’t just slap on the same suit you wear every single day and look good. A girl has to take her time. Plus, I can’t wear the same outfit over and over again.” She shook her head. “No way.”

  Daryl rolled his eyes. “You’ll look good no matter what you wear,” he told her.

  Jane gave him a look. “Listen, if you want to help, wait for me in the parking lot,” she told him. “I can’t get dressed knowing I have a time limit.”

  Daryl looked like he was going to argue, thought better of it, then nodded. Without a word, he headed out the door, leaving Jane with a pile of clothes and no clue as to what to wear.

  It was a half hour before Jane stood in front of a mirror, checking to make sure she looked good from every angle. She decided on a mini-dress that had a high neck, a ruched waist, and a short hemline. It was green, bringing out her eyes even more than the eyeliner and mascara already did. She wore nude high heels—though the heels were only two inches; she wasn’t going to a nightclub, after all—and her hair was in a high bun. Originally, she was going to straighten her locks, but she thought she looked younger with them down and wanted to appear older to these people. She didn’t want them to think Daryl was a cradle robber, after all.

  After locking the door, Jane headed to the parking lot where Daryl was leaning against their sleek rental car, looking down at his watch and muttering things to himself in what sounded like Russian. The minute he noticed her, however, his rant stopped and his eyes went wide. Daryl was notorious for masking his feelings. Everyone knew it. He was a snarky, monosyllabic professor who graded hard and isolated himself from everything and everyone. But when he saw Jane emerge from the hotel lobby, that part of him went out the window.

  Jane watched as he blatantly looked at her, his eyes following every inch, every curve her body and that little green dress had to offer. It was as though he didn’t care that he was revealing how he felt to her. He didn’t care much about anything right now because of the way she looked. The thought made her throat dry up and her pelvis pulsate with both pleasure and pain. It was as though the beating against her insides were filled with too much pleasure that it turned to pain, if that made any sense at all.

  Jane wasn’t sure. She couldn’t think straight. Not when she realized the extent of the power she had over Daryl.

  Why hadn’t she used this before? Why hadn’t she attempted this before they officially got together in order to gage his feelings and remind him just how attracted to her he was?

  When she finally reached him, he glanced away, suddenly remembering that he was being too obvious with his reaction. “You look nice,” he said as he opened the car door for her.

  Jane smirked to herself. She thanked him, but kept her mouth shut about everything else. If he wanted to pretend that she didn’t affect him, fine. She had seen the way he looked at her, and that said everything his lips wouldn’t.

  Rose’s house was a quaint two-story home in the middle of a quiet residential area. It had a white picket fence, and was trimmed in navy-blue. The house itself had to have been built in the early nineteen hundreds, but the paint job and design appeared modern. Jane immediately fell in love with it, even though she would never leave Southern California for all the money in the world.

  “Did you used to live in a house like this?” she asked in a voice just above a whisper. She slid her arm through his as they walked up the stone driveway, and Jane had to make sure she didn’t slip on the awkward pavement.

  Daryl shook his head. “Not when we first got here,” he said. “Marvin wanted to immerse himself in his client pool, so we lived poor for the first few years. I hated it, and Marvin did, too. This is one of the nicer areas.”

  When they reached the door, instead of knocking, Daryl walked right through, bringing Jane along with him. It surprised Jane that he walked right in without a courteous knock, but maybe that was the custom here. People were already here, which surprised Jane even more. She expected a few people, of course, but she was used to parties where everyone showed up late and stayed late. Here, people seemed to respect the start time, and if there was an end time, would probably respect that as well.

  Daryl’s hand was steady. When it held onto Jane’s, it felt warm, and that heat transferred over to hers. She didn’t know why, but her hands always seemed to be cold, save for when Daryl held onto them. He made them feel special, brought out something in them that she couldn’t. And, as a result, their place was in his.

  He went on to introduce her to the majority of the room. From the corner of her eye, Jane noticed Marvin speaking with Rose in the kitchen. It did not appear he noticed them. At least not yet.

  When Jane pointed them out to Daryl, instead of submerging in the crowd, he led her directly over to the couple.

  “What are we doing?” Jane asked in a hushed whisper. “Are you crazy? We’re going to blow our cover!”

  “That is precisely the plan,” he explained.

  Jane had no idea what was going through Daryl’s mind, but she knew better than to argue. The minute they stepped into the kitchen, Marvin’s eyes went wide and he took a step backwards, shocked. Rose did not seem to notice Marvin’s reaction at seeing his younger brother much sooner than he expected. She smiled at the two of them.

  “See, Marv?” Rose said. “I told you I ran into your brother at the diner. He said he wanted to surprise you, but I know how much you hate surprises.” She looked like she was going to say more, but som
ething stopped her.

  No, not something. Someone.

  Daryl.

  “Marvin, you know what I’m doing, yes?” he asked. His black eyes were focused on Marvin. It was as though they were the only two in the room. Not even Jane could get his attention when he was that focused.

  “You hurt her, I’ll snap your neck, baby brother,” Marvin said, and all his usual jovialness was nowhere to be found.

  “Good. I have her mind, and there’s nothing you can do to get it back,” Daryl informed him. “If you even think of going for Jane, I will prevent oxygen from getting to her brain, and while she won’t die, she will be brain dead. Do you doubt me?”

  Jane’s face paled at Daryl’s threat. She knew Daryl hated his brother for everything Marvin had done, but she hadn’t realized just how thoroughly his anger burned. There was no stopping it, not until Daryl got what he wanted. She wasn’t sure how she felt about seeing this side of him. On the one hand, Daryl was doing what he thought needed to be done. On the other, he was using Rose’s life in order to get what he wanted, and despite his motives, that wasn’t right.

  Jane looked over at Marvin, wondering if he wouldn’t believe his younger brother to be capable of something like this. Before now, she wouldn’t have believed it. She wasn’t sure what criteria he used, if he just knew his brother well enough to know Daryl would do it, or if he used his abilities to make sure, but there was a flicker in his pale eyes, and instantly, Jane knew Daryl had Marvin. Marvin knew it, too, and he looked furious. However, he nodded once, indicating that he was listening to Daryl.