Belle and the Beast: A College Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Ruby Vincent

  “What is?”

  “How often the best choice is the one that makes everyone miserable.”

  I said nothing.

  “Did you have fun tonight?” Nathan asked after a beat. “Running around making up shit about me and my boys.” He sounded almost conversational.

  “Had a blast. Thank you for asking.”

  “While you’re in the mood to answer questions, can you tell me how much revenge you’ll need until you’re satisfied?” He took a healthy swig. “Should I buckle in for the entire summer?”

  “How much have you had to drink, Nathan?”

  “Oh ho. There it is.” He threw his arms out, moving back. “Belle Adler’s special blend of concern and disdain. Didn’t know you still cared, baby.” He pointed to his mouth. “Or that I could still curl those lips.”

  My fists balled. “You have the same effect on me that I apparently have over you. Seems I can still get your blood boiling.”

  “Like no one else.”

  “What happened between us wasn’t my fault, Nathan.”

  “You really believe that, don’t you?”

  “You broke us!”

  “You—!”

  “Nathan?”

  I ducked inside. An instinctive move more than anything.

  Kelli had shed her matching outfit and sunglasses for her birthday suit. She looked around, missing me cloaked behind the drapes. “Were you talking to someone?”

  “Myself.”

  “Ooh,” she purred, draping her arms around his shoulders. “I can put that mouth to much better use.”

  “You first.”

  Nathan guided a giggling Kelli onto her knees.

  “Right here? What if someone sees us?”

  He looked me right in the eye. “I guarantee someone will.”

  This wasn’t the deterrent I thought it would be. She got his dick out of his pants faster than I unwrapped a Twizzler. Kelli swallowed him whole, filling the night with moans that burrowed in my ears.

  I slammed the door hard enough to make my point. Curling up on my bed, I reached for another distraction since my book was spending the night outside. I brushed my phone grabbing the remote, lighting up the screen and the notification from an unknown number.

  Chapter Five

  Carter

  “Eggs with spinach and chorizo,” said Preston.

  “Salmon eggs benedict,” I threw in.

  Nathan slumped in his seat, shades covering half his face. I wasn’t entirely sure the guy wasn’t sleeping.

  Preston threw an orange at him. “Wake your ass up.”

  “I’m awake,” he said easily. “Corn fritters with Canadian bacon and avocado, if you please, Dorothy. Throw in a plate of maple pancakes and I’ll marry you at the end of the summer.”

  The chef’s assistant scurried off tittering.

  The three of us were awaiting breakfast on the back yard terrace. The rest of them were inside eating from a prepared menu from the dining room. Naturally we weren’t expected to join them, but whoever left the possessive hickeys and scratches all over Nathan was likely craning her neck scanning for his arrival.

  “You know why she told everyone that garbage, don’t you?” I twirled an apple on its stem. “Because she wins either way. If we say nothing, she’s the knocked-up mother of a toddler who had a run-in with the clap. But if we admit she’s a liar, then the guys will steer clear of the rumor-spreading nutcase.”

  “She’s a beautiful, evil genius,” Preston said.

  “Can you not admire the girl who told everyone you had chlamydia?” Nathan asked. “There’s got to be a limit to what you’ll take from her, or she’ll rip you to shreds.”

  “Belle made it clear she doesn’t want marriage. She’s doing what she has to do to keep a stubborn fool off one knee.” He leaned back, adopting Nathan’s slouch. “And I’ll do what I have to do and let everyone know she’s a liar. It works for me too—having fewer guys circling her.”

  “They aren’t the sharks in this scenario.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what you two say until you stop dropping hints and tell me what happened between you and Belle. Anyone? Nathan?” He swung to me. “Carter?”

  The apple broke from the stem, banging on the table.

  “Thought so,” Preston finished. “I should be gearing up to eat my eggs off her right now. She refuses to believe you two didn’t tell me about her.”

  “Stubbornness is one of the evil genius’s many wonderful traits,” Nathan said. “For the last time, stick with Delilah.”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s one of yours too,” he said under his breath.

  Preston laughed.

  I narrowed on that smile. “You’re in a good mood for a guy who doesn’t stand a chance. Did Adler give you some kind of hint that she’s thawing?”

  “I was in her bed yesterday and she didn’t fuck me up. Taking that as a good sign.” Preston snatched up the apple and took a bite. Juice dotted his smirking lips. “Why? You got something to say now?”

  “We’ve got your back, Preston. Always have. You’d think that would mean something.”

  The grin faded. “The trust goes both ways. I’ve waited a long time to find this girl. If I’m meant to let Cinderella go, give me a reason.”

  “I don’t have to.” I pushed back from the table. “She’ll do that on her own.”

  BELLE

  I tucked my phone in the top drawer. I wouldn’t need it until I called the dame later that night. With it out of sight, I could focus on my present disaster and Dad’s threat to rip away my inheritance if I didn’t participate in every event.

  First: Speed dating.

  My schedule actually read Two-minute Introductions, but I could read between the lines. I’d need a plate of something greasy and the strongest tea on the menu if I was going to make it through.

  Walking out of my room, I smelled him before I saw him.

  Cinnamon, grapefruit, and spicy black pepper would make for a weird treat in reality, but on Carter Knight, it was intoxicating.

  “Are you three going to make ambushing me a habit?”

  Carter leaned on the opposite wall, hands folded and face blank. “Standing outside of your room is an ambush?”

  “What do you want, Carter?”

  “I just wanted to know if it meant something that you’re making curly-headed munchkins with Nathan, but I’m given the incurable disease?”

  “Don’t read into it.” I adopted his stance on my door. “Anyone who knows our history wouldn’t buy that we slept together. Had to come up with something special for you and the muse just took over.”

  He bared his teeth. “This is just some game to you, isn’t it? Piper went to Mrs. Desai this morning demanding that medical history be revealed before considering a proposal. You may not want to be here, but some of us have a lot riding on this summer.”

  “I’m well aware of that. Which is why my targets were you three. No collateral damage.”

  “We didn’t tell Preston about you, Belle. I didn’t know you and Nathan had a history too.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  Carter sprang froward, slamming his hands on either side of my head. “Believe that after I entered the academy, I scrubbed the name Belle Adler from my life and forgot you ever existed? Yeah, I expect you to believe that. Why would I want to talk about you, Belle?” Burning blues raked me up and down. “You’re a manipulative liar... and you haven’t changed at all.”

  His gaze could only hold me for so long. Inevitably, I drifted to his scar.

  “There’s a lot about that day you don’t understand,” I whispered.

  “Whose fault is that?”

  I flinched. “You wouldn’t hear me then and you might not hear me now, but no matter what you think, I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

  My hand moved on its own.

  “Don’t,” he hissed.

  “You were my best friend, Carter.” My finger grazed
the pale mark, enticing a hitch in his breath. “That I hurt you is one of the biggest regrets of my life. Especially because I did what I did because I loved you.”

  “That’s rich,” he snapped, shoving my hand away. “Pretending like you did me some favor. I’ll have this scar for the rest of my life, Belle, reminding me how far your love goes.”

  My heart splintered, cracking so wretchedly I was sure he heard. When would my soul stop breaking for Carter Knight?

  When the pain of his heart doing the same stops shining in his eyes.

  I couldn’t fling accusations at Carter like I’d done with Nathan. The one who broke us was me, and everything Carter did afterward was no more than I deserved.

  “I made a mistake.”

  “So you admit it?” Fervency leaked emotion through his mask. “You admit that you lied.”

  Erasing the scant distance between us, I slid my arms around his waist, burying my nose in his neck. “I miss you.” My lips skated over his skin. “You still smell so good.”

  He gripped my hips, and for one blissful second, he drew me closer.

  Then he was gone.

  Carter ripped out of my hold. He flung into the opposite wall like he’d plow through to get away from me.

  “What the fuck are you playing at, Belle?! You miss me?!” Carter’s eyes were anything but icy. They were darkened by a roaring, wild rage. “You just can’t stop yourself, can you? Everything with you is a mindfuck! You will say and do anything to get what you want.”

  “I mean it, Carter.” I straightened, pushing my strap back up my shoulder. “I miss you, and I want us to be friends again. If you honestly didn’t put Preston up to sleeping with me, then there’s nothing stopping us from starting over. It’s up to you.”

  “We can start over—”

  Something in his voice halted me in my tracks.

  “—when you tell the truth about that day and how I got this scar.”

  I opened my mouth—to say what, I didn’t know—but nothing came.

  When the voice of reason told me to leave that time, I listened.

  I walked away from Carter Knight.

  Again.

  CARTER

  I paced the length of the terrace, zeroed in on a single girl through the glass.

  Belle sat in the dining room, munching on a plate of hash browns and runny eggs. Across from her, laughing at a joke she made, was some shithead. Zeke? Zach? Who cares?

  Every thirty seconds, Belle paused to sip from her teacup—pinky in the air like she used to do when we were kids. Just one in the many ways she was a contradiction.

  She tossed that pinky up. Covered her mouth when she laughed. Said please and thank you with the best of them. Always sat ankles-crossed like the daughter of the dame should.

  Yet somehow, this was the same person wearing an oversized teal T-shirt cut to reveal her shoulders, a black sequin skirt, and stilettos to double as a murder weapon. She cussed to put a nun in a coma, won an all-you-can-eat vegan hot dog challenge (according to an Instagram page that I only looked at out of curiosity), and was the most twisted, devious person you’d ever have the displeasure of meeting. Belle would rip your heart out and use the blood to sweeten her tea.

  The devil with fashion sense and a high-class pedigree.

  “What the hell is his problem?” I heard Preston ask.

  The three of us were outside awaiting the start of the first event. Mrs. Desai fluttered around, overseeing the placement of the chairs and tables, and all-around making people doing an easy, menial task more nervous than they needed to be.

  Nathan came over, getting in my path. “Two words,” he said to Preston. “Let me guess, C, you skipped breakfast to confront Belle and she reduced you to half the man I see before me.”

  “Fuck off!”

  “A simple yes would do.”

  Growling, I sought her again. I hadn’t seen Belle in person in four years. Time had transformed her in every way. A long, silken braid wrapped around her shoulder and hung between her breasts. Shapelier breasts than I remembered to go with the new curves and lines her body formed. Her voice was deeper. Her lily-green eyes bigger. And her mouth—

  “I missed you.” Phantom lips tickled my throat. “You still smell so good.”

  “Argh!” I clawed at my neck, raking red lines over her invisible mark.

  Where the fuck does she get off saying that to me? Telling me she wants to be friends and then turning her back on me. Saying she did what she did that day because she loved me? What a load of crap.

  “Dude.” Preston clapped my shoulder. “May I suggest you stop glaring like you’re trying to set her on fire? Belle may not have noticed but everyone else has.”

  I tore away from her, and took in the sideways glances and open stares.

  “What do you see in her, D?” I swung my head to him. “She trashed your favorite painting, refuses to date you, cracked your nose, and is wrecking your chances with Delilah. You fucked her and got it out of your system. Just move on.”

  “I haven’t begun to get Belle out of my system. And I told you already, I’m not giving up until you give me a reason.”

  My hand moved to touch my scar.

  Too late. Hers was already there. Featherlight as she stood in that hallway and stroked the end of our friendship.

  “Preston. Boys.” Mrs. Desai called us over. “Come have a seat. We start in a few minutes.”

  I pushed past him, heading for the seats nearest the sand and swell. Small, two-person tables were arranged in a circle around the courtyard. Today was a full day and it began with two-minute introductions. Mrs. Desai labeled the chairs for the girls, leaving the guys to get up and move around every two minutes.

  Preston plopped down across from the seat labeled Belle Adler. I claimed the chair next to it.

  BELLE

  I felt Carter’s eyes on me all through breakfast. If it was possible to drill a hole in someone with a look, my brains would’ve been leaking on my eggs.

  “What’s the history between you two?” Zion asked.

  I sipped my tea, using the act to delay my response.

  “We moved around a lot,” I began. “Before Bracknell, I lived in Stirling. Before that was Hawk’s Bay.”

  “Where Carter used to live?”

  I nodded. “We lived there the longest. Six years. Carter and I were best friends for four of them.”

  “What happened?”

  “What always makes a friendship fall apart. He needed me and I let him down.” I peered at Carter through my lashes, observing him barking at Preston. “He’s been making my life hell ever since.” I inclined my head. “Though I give him credit for taking a break after we went to different high schools.”

  “Shit. By the looks of it, he hasn’t forgiven and forgotten.”

  “Why would he?” I whispered. “I haven’t earned forgiveness.”

  “Good morning, everyone.” Carter was gone and Mrs. Desai stood in his place. Preston’s mother was a beautiful lady—that was as much a fact as the sun setting in the west. Pretty and beach-ready in a light pink summer dress and matching sandals, she secured her hat from the wind with a pose that belonged in a magazine. “First up on your schedules is two-minute introductions. Everything we do this summer is designed to help you get to know each other better, and prepare you for the challenges and responsibilities of being a spouse.

  “As such, some activities will be mixed and a few will be just for the girls or boys. Tomorrow morning, I’ll steal the girls away for a private session. Boys, you’ll have a separate task to complete as well. If you have any questions as we go along, feel free to ask me or Mr. Hendrix.

  “All right, let’s get underway. Ladies, please find your seats. Gentlemen, sit anywhere.”

  I downed the remains of my tea and fell in behind Zion, Mila, and Delilah Winthrop herself. I studied her beautiful back of the head, thinking of Preston’s surprise visit to my room. The way he made it sound, he was marrying Delilah beca
use he had to, not because he wanted to. That should have made things simple. I understood being forced into an arranged marriage. But honestly, it served up more problems.

  Leaving aside that he may have gotten me into bed for a bet, he said Delilah believed she owned him, and I needed nowhere near a situation like that. Jealous, possessive people didn’t believe that too far was far enough. I was creating a whole case of drama all on my own this summer. Inviting more from Delilah and her fiancé-to-be read bad idea all over it.

  Even if he’s sitting at my table, giving me a look like he wants to bend me over it.

  “Du Pont-Desai,” I greeted. “Ever notice that your initials are PDPD? Course you did. That’s why you have them stitched into your sheets.”

  “Brought the same sheets here if you want to take them for another spin.”

  I sat down, crossing my legs at the ankles, and smiling sweet. To anyone watching we were having a nice chat. “I’m going to pass on that, but thanks for the offer.”

  “No problem.” Preston leaned over the table, hands out like he wanted me to take them. “I’ve got seven days left.”

  A clap cut off my response. “Okay, ladies, gentlemen. You have two minutes to chat and get to know each other. On every table are notecards with conversation starters. Hendrix will chime the first bell to begin. Every time it rings, boys, stand up and move to your left. Ready?”

  “Ready,” we replied.

  The bell chimed, returning Preston’s attention firmly to me. “Here’s a conversation starter: Have Nathan and Carter backed up that they didn’t tell me a thing about you?”

  “They have.”

  “Do you believe them?”

  I glanced to the right. “When we were twelve, something happened and my friendship with Carter imploded. He and his buddies then spent the rest of middle school torturing me. In seventh grade, the most popular guy in school asked me to winter formal. I made the cutest dress. One of my best pieces. Took me weeks to finish it.

  “Mom did my hair and put makeup on me for the first time. I felt like that little fool Cinderella about to go to her first ball.” I grinned without mirth. “Can you guess what happened?”