Wicked Rich

by C. Morgan

  “Be honest with me, Julio,” I said once he’d spoken my ear off about what was going on in his life. “How are things really? If I get a job here and start sending money to you, do you think you could sneak it to them somehow? Dad wouldn’t even consider it.”

  “I’m not considering it either,” he said stubbornly. “If you send me money, I’ll tell them. Stop worrying so much. We’re all good. Try to enjoy yourself for once in your damn life. You can’t be all about work all the time.”

  “Sure I can,” I said. “You’ll let me know if you need me, right? Even if I don’t get a job, I’ve got savings I can—”

  “Savings to keep you afloat while you’re studying,” he said, not even allowing me to finish the sentence. “I’m seventeen, Haddie. I’ve been helping Dad out at the shop to get some experience, and I’ve applied for a job at the computer store at the mall. We’ll be fine. Go out and have some fun. You only get four years at college, or haven’t you heard?”

  “Ha ha,” I said dryly, but I let the subject drop for now.

  It was obvious they were going to keep insisting that everything was fine, and I knew that even if tried to help, they’d just send the money right back to me. I’d known all along that getting into Edgewater was going to mean taking four years off work to focus on my studies, which was why I’d worked so hard to have savings I could use while I was here.

  I was pretty sure that I would be able to get a job in town, but making time for any job would be difficult with my schedule. It was something I’d put on the backburner, but maybe it was time to revisit the idea. Not that I’d tell them about it before I actually did it.

  Julio and I chatted for another few minutes before we hung up, but instead of going back to my assignment, I closed my textbook. I hadn’t had a chance to write to Leah, my Little Sister, this week. I’d brought our special stationery with me, and since I wasn’t getting anywhere with schoolwork anyway, I decided to take the opportunity to pen a letter to her.

  While I wrote her about my classes, the campus, Ruby, and even Dax, I kept sneaking glances at him. By the time I was sealing the letter into an envelope, however, practice was done.

  When I looked up again, Daxton was already out of his boat and walking up the lawn, still shirtless, to greet me. His blond hair was damp with sweat and slicked back, his eyes glittering with happiness and adrenaline.

  His blue shorts hung from his hips like they were being held up by nothing but his willpower, and his skin glistened in the early afternoon sun. There were a few groups of girls sitting on the grass around me, and almost every one of them turned to look at him as he strode up the slight hill.

  He didn’t spare a glance for anyone else, though. His gaze was locked on mine, and as soon as he got to me, he bent over, slid a hand under my chin to lift my face up to his, and kissed me breathless.

  I didn’t even care that he was dripping with sweat as my arms went up to lock around his neck and my chest pressed to his when he dropped to his knees. The kiss got hot pretty fast, and my chest was heaving by the time he pulled away from me with a grin.

  “So, what did you think? Did watching me get sweaty get you all hot and bothered?” he asked, his tone flirty and teasing. “If it did, I think we ought to devise a signal. Next time when you come to watch, you can let me know when you need me and I’ll come right over to help you out.”

  “Really? Right here on the lawn?” I asked. “Interesting. I wonder how your coach and teammates would feel about you bailing in the middle of practice to get it on in public?”

  “If you’re into doing it in public, I could give it a try,” he joked. “I was thinking more that I could bail and take you up to my room right away. The house is close enough, but the boathouse could do in a pinch.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’m not sure I’m ready for boathouse sex.” As I looked into those blue eyes of his, just inches away from my own as he sat on his knees on the grass in front me, I seriously thought about dragging him in there, though.

  He grinned and leaned forward to press a soft kiss to my jaw before standing up and offering me his hand. “We’ll have to work on that. I’ve got more places than just the boathouse in mind.”

  “Oh yeah?” I put my hand in his, letting him pull me up before winding my arms around his neck again. “Any of them in Hawaii? Because I’ve been thinking about it, and I have an answer for you.”

  “You do?” His hands came up to rest on my hips, but the expression on his face was suddenly unreadable. “What is it?”

  “Yes,” I said simply. “I’ll come with you, Dax. I can’t wait actually.”

  For a moment, the same, unreadable expression remained on his handsome features, but then his lips spread into the most radiant grin I’d ever seen on him. When his mouth descended back onto mine, he kissed me with such fervor that every doubt his expression had created evaporated from my mind.

  We’re going to Hawaii together. And he’s clearly as excited about it as I am.

  Chapter 23

  DAXTON

  The weekend after Haddie came to watch me row, she and I sat in a quaint cafe sipping coffee and studying. Or rather, she was studying. I kept distracting her.

  It had been her idea to get out to get some studying done, since every time we tried in one of our rooms, the only thing we ended up studying was each other’s anatomy. While Ruby actually had anatomy as a subject, neither of us did, which meant we needed to get to other stuff eventually.

  Ever since she’d agreed to come with me to Hawaii, things had changed between us. They’d solidified somehow.

  My plan was still in place, but I was thinking about my hatred for her less and less. Maybe it was just because I’d locked it in now, but somewhere along the way, revenge had become less important to me. I was still planning on getting it, but I was also determined to enjoy the time I had left with her.

  I kept telling myself it was because it would make it hurt even more when she realized I’d taken off without her after our weekend together, but not even I was really buying that anymore. In a moment late one night when I’d been being honest with myself while I couldn’t sleep, I’d admitted that I wanted to spend time with her because I liked her.

  Hadley and I had always gotten along. As soon as we’d met, it was like I’d found something in her that I’d never found before and hadn’t found again since. She was the only person I’d ever been able to look at and tell what she was thinking, and the only person who could do the same with me.

  It was like we were connected in some way I couldn’t explain, but while that made me like her, it also made me hate her more for what she’d done. So. Much. Fucking. Confusion.

  Even I couldn’t make out what was going on in the clusterfuck that had become of my brain, so I’d decided to stop trying to figure it out. We were going to Hawaii, I was going to leave her there, and then I’d see what happened after that.

  I hadn’t set into motion any of the things my brothers had suggested for after the trip, and I’d even stopped thinking about ways to get her out of Edgewater when I was done with her. Whenever I thought back to high school, that spark of hatred burning like a beacon in my chest spurred me on to try to get her kicked out, but then I saw her now and that same spark just fizzed right out.

  Which was why I’d resolved to take things one step at a time after Hawaii. In the meantime, my head wasn’t getting into the assignment I was supposed to be doing, and when Haddie looked up at me, catching me looking at her again, she rolled her eyes and smiled.

  “What?” she asked. “Am I growing a unicorn horn? I know I don’t have spinach in my teeth because I haven’t eaten any, but there’s got to be something.”

  “There is. You’re beautiful. It’s distracting.”

  She laughed, shaking her head before pointing at my textbook. “You haven’t even turned the page since we’ve gotten here, and it’s not because I’m beautiful. What’s on your mind?”

  Fuck. She was beautiful an
d it was distracting, but she was also right. Obviously. “Have you ever been really torn about something? Like there are two completely different parts of you pulling you in two very different directions?”

  Sitting back to give me her full attention, she tilted her head and pursed her lips as she thought. It didn’t take long before she nodded. “I have actually. Yes. Recently, in fact.”

  “Yeah? So my brain isn’t splitting in two?”

  “Nope, I don’t think so,” she said. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Nah, it’s not that important.” Besides, I wouldn’t get two seconds into telling her what I was so broken up about before she’d be out of here. “You want to talk about it?”

  She stared at me for a second, then nodded. “Sure. Why not? I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I might have picked my major.”

  “Oh? What have you decided?” I breathed an internal sigh of relief. While I knew this would’ve been a difficult decision for her, it was also a much safer topic than what was on my mind.

  “Business and Computer Science,” she told me proudly. “I’ve been looking into all the different options and combinations in the fields that interest me, and I think that’s the best call.”

  “Why did you choose that? I thought you said you didn’t think you had the mind for computers.”

  Her tongue came out to dart across her lips and she inhaled deeply through her nose. “I wanted something I could accomplish in four years, as you know. That’s a double major, but it doesn’t look like there’ll be any clashes, which means I could get it done.”

  “Makes sense.”

  She smiled. “I also wanted something that would lead to a promising career, and I think that will. It checks the boxes you mentioned since it’s both business and digital, but they’re also two very versatile streams of focus.”

  Surprise smacked me in the chest. She’s actually taking my advice on something that important?

  I hadn’t been bullshitting her, but still, the fact that she’d even considered my opinion for a moment did strange things to my already confused self.

  “Will it make you happy, though?” I asked, almost as surprised about the fact that I cared about her answer as I had been about her having taken my advice. “Will it fulfill you, or will you spend the rest of your life wondering if there was a better option for you here?”

  “The most fulfilling thing for me will be getting my footing in a business where I can work my way up to being respected and taken seriously,” she said. “At the same time, it will allow me to make good money so I can help my family. That will make me happier than anything else, so yes. I think it will make me happy and fulfill me.”

  An unfamiliar emotion spread through my chest. It took me a moment to realize that it was admiration. I admired Hadley for having the goals that she did and for being serious about following through on them. It was pretty damn selfless of her, which made me think about myself.

  The fucking irony.

  She’d told me about her decision after I’d asked her if she’d ever been torn about something. There I was, thinking about whether I should be following through on my plan or if I was being too cruel about something that happened years ago, and when asked the question about being torn, this is what she answered.

  She’d been confused about what to dedicate her future to and she’d made a mature, selfless decision while I was plotting revenge and deliberately not even thinking further than a week into the future.

  I wasn’t really one for introspection. It had always seemed like a waste of time to me. The way I saw it, we did what we did in any given moment because that was what we either wanted or needed to do in that moment. Overthinking those decisions just seemed futile and pointless.

  For the first time in my life, however, I felt like maybe I needed to do some thinking. I had been thinking about the plan, a-fucking-lot, but she’d still given me food for thought. A different way of thinking about things that I hadn’t yet considered.

  There was revenge, yes. There was what she’d done to me when I’d already been down, but there were also other things to keep in mind. Not the least of which was that we’d grown up. She’d apologized and it was very obvious that her decision-making processes had grown with her.

  I supposed the real question was whether mine had grown with me. But that wasn’t something I could get into right here, right now. It would require space away from her, possibly a bottle of tequila, and a long, difficult conversation with myself.

  Hadley was still waiting patiently for me to respond to what she’d said. Her lips were rolled into her mouth and her eyes were wide where they studied mine.

  Without questioning it or trying to hold back this time, I reached across the table and laid my hand down on it with my palm up, waiting for her to put her hand in mine. When she did, I stroked my fingers over her skin and glanced down at our joined hands before lifting my gaze back to hers.

  “I think that you’re amazing, do you know that?” I said, completely sincere. “It’s no fucking wonder you got in here. You’re exactly the type of person who deserves to have every option in life laid open to you. The type who will take the scholarship you’ve been given and make every cent worth it instead of taking it and never doing anything with the opportunity.”

  Light shone from her eyes as she squeezed my hand, curling her fingers around it. “Personally, I don’t think I’m anything special, but thank you. It’s our duty to take care of the people who take care of us, isn’t it?”

  “Of course. Yeah.” Not that I’d ever seen it as my duty to take care of anybody but myself, but I guessed I understood where she was coming from. “Congratulations on deciding.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled, squeezed my hand again, and then withdrew hers as she moved forward on her chair. “We should get some more studying done. I need to finish my assignment and read over at least one more chapter.”

  “Then we get to have Saturday?”

  Haddie chuckled but dipped her head in agreement. “Then we get to have Saturday.”

  She tucked the loose tendrils of her hair that had escaped her messy ponytail behind her ears, her focus going back to her work seamlessly. I watched as she picked her up colored pens one after the other, making notes before turning to type away on the small laptop she had open on the table in front of her.

  After a few minutes, I resigned myself to having to get some schoolwork done before enjoying the rest of the weekend. Sighing as I pulled my textbook closer, I hunched over it and actually managed to get something done this time around.

  We stayed in the coffee shop for two more hours before Hadley was finally ready to call it a day. I paid our bill while she was packing up, then refused her offers when she tried to pay me back. When we got to my car—a black Mustang my father had delivered to the frat house as a surprise—I opened the door for her and rolled my eyes when she teased me about having become a gentleman.

  “What do you say we go for a drive before I take you back to the dorms?” I asked once I’d pulled out of the parking lot.

  She shifted on the leather seat to look at me. “I haven’t had the chance to see any of the surrounding area, so yes. That sounds great.”

  “Good, because I’m not quite ready for our study date to be over with yet.” I grinned at her in the rearview mirror before navigating us out of town.

  As soon as I left it behind us, we were the only car on the road most of the time. With the open road ahead of us, I put the top down and Hadley fiddled with my radio until she found a song she liked. It turned out to be one that had been popular when we’d met, and she coaxed me into singing along with her as she shouted the lyrics into the wind.

  Her hair whipped around her head, but it didn’t seem to bother her in the least. With her sunglasses on and the wide smile that wouldn’t leave her face as she danced in her seat, it didn’t look like there was much that could bother her at the moment.

  I let the wind clear my own worries out of
my head, more content than I should’ve been just driving around with her. There was something else building up in me, though. It wasn’t just lust. It was more like this intense need to touch her rather than only the desire to do it. It felt like I needed to touch her while I still could. Because all too soon, I was never going to get to touch her again and the thought of that wasn’t as comforting as it should’ve been.

  Chapter 24

  HADLEY

  Dreams had strange and unexpected ways of coming true. All my life, I’d seen teens and young adults in movies, driving with the top down and looking like they were having the time of their lives. I’d always wondered whether it was really as fun as it looked and if I’d ever get the chance to find out for myself.

  It wasn’t one of those bucket-list items that I thought about every day, but it was definitely something I’d always wanted to try. Dax had done that for me. He’d given me an experience I wouldn’t easily have had without him and he didn’t even know it.

  I supposed it seemed silly. All we’d done was to go for a drive in his car and it was making me all warm and fuzzy inside, but I couldn’t help it. In the world I’d grown up in, cars just didn’t have tops that came down and driving wasn’t something that was done for fun.

  My parents and I planned out every mile to save on gas, and the only way the roof of their car or mine opened up was if we sawed them off. I knew things worked differently for Daxton, and I also knew that this wasn’t something special he’d planned only for me, but I couldn’t help but feel grateful to him.

  The scenery zipped by as we drove but eventually, Dax started slowing when we reached an open field. When I realized we were stopping, I turned to look at him and instantly recognized the look in his eyes.

  I didn’t know what could’ve made him horny on the drive, but his gaze devoured me. There was a raw hunger in it that I hadn’t seen from him before, almost like it was pure need behind the wheel instead of him.