Very Twisted Things (Briarcrest Academy #3)

by Ilsa Madden-Mills

  “Sebastian—”

  “V—”

  We both spoke at the same time and then stopped.

  “I’m sorry I pushed you away yesterday,” I said softly.

  “I’m sorry I let you. Look, can we go somewhere and talk before this gets started? There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Hing chose that moment to enter the room. “I should stay here and greet people.”

  Sebastian sighed, his eyes following mine. “You’re changing, V. I mean I like seeing you grow, and if it means you’re leaving me, then I’m okay with it.”

  “What? No, I’m not leaving you.”

  Just then Blair walked in and made a beeline for us. Sebastian’s mouth opened as she dropped a sizable check in my hand and gave us each cheek pecks. “Thank you darling, for everything. I adore you both to the moon and back. Here’s my fifty thousand along with an additional ten.” She smiled brightly and waltzed off in a haze of perfume.

  Sebastian had gone pale. “What the fuck? Am I in Bizarro World?” He grabbed my hand and started walking for the exit doors that led out into the hotel. “I don’t know what just happened, but I’m taking you out of here.”

  “I told you I had her taken care of,” I said.

  “How?”

  I came to a halt. “Stop. I can’t do another walk-in cooler episode with you. I have guests.”

  He ignored me and pulled me out into the hall. “I don’t see any coolers. How about that room to the left?” He didn’t wait for my answer but walked across the hall and pulled me inside.

  I looked around at the mop and broom. “The cleaning closet? Really?”

  “Doesn’t matter where we are, I’ll always want you.” He tilted my face up. “I hate fighting with you, V. I’ve been miserable for the past twenty-four hours, and it has little to do with my career, but all to do with you.”

  “I know.” I touched his face. He looked different. Softer. As if he couldn’t take not touching me too, his thumb rubbed my bottom lip.

  “Did you know that I could stare at you for hours? You’re like a fucking Picasso painting. And your eyes … don’t even get me started. I want to wake up to them every day for the rest of my life.”

  Then he kissed me. I moaned as he pressed me up against the wall, his hips fitting against me.

  He pulled back, his gaze tender. “I have a confession to make, so bear with me. First off, when it comes to Geoff, I kinda go bonkers. Because I know that if he loved you once with just an iota of the way I love you, then he’s never going to be over you completely. I know I need to work on my trust issues. I know I have a messed-up way of looking at girls, but here’s the thing I figured out … you are not those girls. You never will be. I’ve known you were different from the first moment I watched you play, and if you want to go to New York, then I’ll suck it up. Hell, I’ll go to couples therapy to make sure I don’t let it blow up in our faces. I’ll move to Manhattan. I never should have walked off from you yesterday. I was upset thinking you would leave me, and it colored everything I said.”

  “You love me?” I clutched his arms.

  He pressed his forehead against mine. “I do. You’re part of me. You’re in my heart, in my brain. I’ve touched you, made love to you, tasted you. I can’t ever forget that, and knowing you and your beauty on the inside, I’m never going to be able to watch stars or comets without thinking of you. I’m never going to be able to eat a cheese puff or watch Star Wars without wishing you were beside me.”

  His hand drifted up to touch my hair. “I fell for you so hard it scared me, and I couldn’t admit it to myself. I was scared of being used. Scared of losing the most important thing in my life.”

  Elation soared. He loved me.

  He continued. “Before I got your message about the pictures, I threatened Blair today that I’d go public about our fake relationship. I told her I was in love with you and that I wanted to marry you and surely she had a decent bone—”

  “Married?” I sucked in a breath.

  He nodded. “Someday you’ll be Mrs. Sebastian Tate.”

  “You’re so sure?”

  He swept his hands around his chest. “Have you taken a good look at this sexy piece of male? Chicks are dying to get with me.”

  I slapped his arm. “Blair? She listened to you?”

  He shrugged. “She told me you had the pics, and then I got crazy worried. What did you give her? Please tell me it wasn’t money.”

  We’d both been busy, protecting the other.

  I touched his face, his shoulders, his chest, my hands finding their resting place over his heart. “I—I sold my personal story to Hing so he can develop it into a movie. I got a few million in the process, along with an assurance that Blair will get a tiny part in the current movie he’s making.”

  He paled, a wrinkle between his brows. “Why would you do that to yourself? You hate attention.”

  “But I can do it one time, especially if we’re together, and then once the entire story has been told, no one will care. It will all be laid bare. Raw. Just like my music. I also have complete say on everything, even down to who they cast.” Emotion clogged my throat. “I—I chose you.”

  “What do you mean you chose me?”

  “Yes, it’s my life, but it’s going to be told from a guy’s point of view.” I smiled softly. “Yours.”

  Instead of looking elated, he looked confused, his eyes searching mine. “I love you so much, but I can’t allow this to happen. It’s insane for you to open yourself up like that.”

  I shook my head. “I want to tell my story. I didn’t at first, but that was before I realized how much life I have to live. I want others to see how my life was and most of all, how I survived the grief. Because I have. And the money will keep the orphanage running for years.” I smiled. “My heart aches to see you—playing me. Because you have been where I am. You know my pain.”

  I kissed him, chuckling a little at his still stunned face. “I love you, silly. I’d do anything for you.”

  He closed his eyes and then opened them, a dawning light of wonder in them. “I love you with or without this movie.” He bent his head to me. “You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. Inside and out.”

  I grinned. “It gets better. I’m not going to New York. The orphanage is where I want to be right now.” I toyed with the button on his shirt, feeling shy. “Maybe I could go on the road with you in between my semesters at school.”

  He picked me up and twirled me around. “That is my dream, V.”

  He pulled a piece of paper out of his jeans. “I wrote a song for you. I’ve actually been working on it for weeks, and I know it’s too early to sing it in public because I didn’t want to put the spotlight on you—but may I?” He held it up.

  I felt myself glowing. I nodded.

  “With your permission, I’d like to make it the first track on the next album. Spider agrees.”

  I leaned against the wall. Out of breath.

  “I don’t have my guitar, but it’s so powerful that a cappella suits it. You ready?”

  I nodded, and he whipped out of his coat and tossed it on the floor. He hummed to get the right pitch. Then he snapped his fingers to a beat in his head, emotion evident on his face, and sang.

  Get up, dress and eat,

  Move my fingers, my feet.

  Play my popular song,

  All day long.

  Violin Girl in my dreams,

  I got it bad it seems.

  Dark and twisted,

  Music with skin.

  I saw you there,

  Across the way.

  Play your song,

  Laying it bare.

  Date girls, drink champagne,

  Try to forget the pain.

  Weep, sweat, and plead,

  Violin Girl, you make me bleed.

  Quote Romeo and Juliet like a fool,

  When all I wanted was to be cool.

  Did you know they end in tragedy?

/>   Violin Girl in my dreams,

  I got it bad it seems.

  Dark and twisted,

  Music with skin.

  I saw you there,

  Across the way.

  Play your song,

  Laying it bare.

  Sit on a couch, watch a vampire show,

  Kiss and make love til we blow.

  Fall in love under the sky,

  I’ll take it all, the comet too,

  We’ll fly.

  Violin Girl in my dreams,

  I got it bad it seems.

  Dark and twisted,

  Music with skin.

  I saw you there,

  Across the way.

  Play your song,

  Laying it bare.

  I saw you there,

  I saw you there,

  I saw you there …

  Violin Girl,

  Will you be mine,

  Be mine.

  Be mine.

  Silence fell when he ended the song.

  Sometimes in your life you just know things, and I knew with certainty that he loved me beyond measure.

  He took me back in his arms and wiped my tears. “That song is the first song to the rest of my life.”

  I bit my lip.

  “V, don’t cry. It was supposed to make you happy.”

  “I love you so much.” I melted against him. “Kiss me.”

  He kissed me for a long time.

  “We should go,” I whispered against his mouth a bit later.

  “First, I want you to come, V. Right here before we go out there and blow them away with our music.” He slid his hands inside my panties, his fingers working me, sending tingles over my body. I shivered at the need coursing through me.

  “I will never get enough of you,” he growled.

  “What about you?” I gasped out.

  “Ride my fingers, V, and when this night is over, you’re mine in about a million different ways.”

  I nodded. Whatever he wanted. Him. Us.

  I tossed my head back against the wall while his lips and fingers took me to the brink faster than I’d ever been. I clutched his shoulders and held on while he ravaged my skin, my lips, my soul. My body ached to relieve the need I read in his own eyes, and I tried to touch him, but he wouldn’t let me. “Just you, V. Just you. Always.”

  Heat gathered in my spine.

  I cried out his name when I combusted, and he groaned with me.

  We collapsed against each other and I wasn’t sure who was holding up whom.

  He smoothed back my hair. “V? I want to tell the world that you’re mine. I want to shout it out. Is that crazy?”

  I smiled softly. “No.”

  “You make me a better man. I promise you, right here, I will love you until the day I die. I will do everything in my power to make sure you’re happy. Forget Hollywood, forget music. If there’s no you, I’m lost anyway.”

  “We’re going to have it all and more. I’m due.”

  “Due?”

  I pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, feeling the last vestiges of my doubt fade away. “Fairy dust.”

  “Just so you know, I’m not a fairy, but fairy dust is pretty cool.”

  —Sebastian Tate

  WE STRAIGHTENED OUR clothes and went back to the banquet. After the speaker and meal were over, we took the stage like we’d practiced the week before. She sat on a stool between us. Protected. As it should be.

  I took the microphone, gazed out over the crowd, and poured on the charm that came easily to me.

  “I’ve been told that so far we’ve raised half a million dollars tonight in donations. How’s that for a successful party?”

  Lots of clapping ensued with a few catcalls. A few guests took up chanting—mostly the kids who sat the closest to the stage. I grinned and Spider took a big bow, rolling his hands out to the crowd as he strutted around in his blue mink like a peacock.

  I raised my hand and spoke over the applause. “You may not know this, but LA is my hometown. From my heart, thank you for coming out and supporting this great cause. It’s an honor to be here tonight on this stage with the sponsor of the event, Miss Violet St. Lyons.” I cleared my throat. “We have a very special treat for you. V has agreed to play a song with us tonight.”

  I took off my mink, tossed it on a stool, and turned back to a cheering crowd.

  Spider started in with his bass guitar, the sound deep and melodic. Rich with a twist of grunge. The notes rang clear and slow as V kicked in a few bars later, cutting into me like a knife, the prick of pain in the music personifying her.

  Elation lit me as I turned to watch her play. There she was, just a simple girl on stage cradling a violin, her music enough to make the hairs on your arms stand up.

  She wasn’t leaving. She believed in us. She loved me. I loved her.

  We played the song and the audience went nuts. Sometimes in your life you just know things, and my gut knew with certainty that that song would blow up the charts and that tonight wouldn’t be the last time V performed with us on stage.

  The song ended, and I took a deep bow, grabbed V’s hand and dashed off stage.

  It wasn’t the end of our set, but I had to kiss her. I fused our lips together and everything else faded away.

  It was the beginning of a thousand stage exits we’d take together.

  THE END

  AT THE BRIARCREST Academy five year reunion, a rock star, an heiress, a former Hello Kitty lookalike who did not wear pink, an Englishman, a prima donna ballerina, a pre-med student, a sexy genius, a gym owner, and a slew of high society people converged in the gymnasium of the prep school in Highland Park, Texas. It was a virtual kaleidoscope of the rich and famous. Limousines, high-octane sports cars and foreign imports dotted the parking lot. More champagne was consumed that night than at any other reunion, guests would later claim.

  It was the party of the year—according to Emma Easton, the organizer and local resident who’d never gone to New York and become an actress, but had instead found herself stuck in her hometown, twenty pounds heavier and married to Matt Dawson, the father of her four children.

  When Sebastian Tate strolled in the place with a gorgeous violinist on his arm, she peed herself. Literally. She’d never expected him to be the one who made it big and she berated herself for not being true to him. Her husband had recently given her the clap, and when he showed up to the party with the secretary he was banging, they got into a girl-fight with lots of hair pulling and cheek slapping. Emma left the party early with a ripped dress and a pee stain on the back.

  When Sebastian saw Emma for the first time in five years, all he felt was a big fat nothing, except regret that he’d wasted a lot of time and energy thinking about her. In truth, she’d done him a favor. If things had been different and he’d ended up with Emma, he likely would have never left Texas. Her betrayal proved that sometimes bad things can turn into the best things in our lives.

  Sebastian and Violet danced most of the night, in between laughing with their friends. Magazines and tabloids everywhere had announced that she’d just signed a movie deal for ten million dollars and he’d agreed to star in it. They’d also come out publicly about their relationship. As far as his love for the spotlight and her tendency to hide, they’d learned to balance each other out. They kept a low profile, and V was collaborating with the Vital Rejects on their next album. One year later that album would win the Vital Rejects two Grammys: Song of the Year for the song Sebastian wrote for Violet and Record of the Year.

  They continued their work with the orphanage and would later open another facility where most of the kids came from Sebastian’s old neighborhood. You’d often find the couple hanging out by the pool, stargazing, or playing with their dogs.

  Blair left the gala that night thinking she was on top of the world. Apparently blackmailing perfectly nice people and being a bitch seemed to work. Later that week, she’d fallen madly in lust with an eighteen-year-old waiter who worked at Java
and Me. They got trashed and drove all night to Vegas where they got married in an Elvis Presley wedding chapel. He divorced her three months later. There was no prenup.

  One night she went to the movies and watched Sebastian star in Violet’s movie, Very Twisted Things. It moved her so much that she repented of her sins and joined a cult of women who only wore white, shaved their heads, and hung out in airports.

  Wilson ended up marrying his sexy neighbor, Mrs. Milano who wore sparkly gold bikinis everywhere she went. Without grandkids of his own, he’d often dog-sit for Violet and Sebastian.

  Harry deeply regretted being a sorry agent to Sebastian. Once Very Twisted Things hit the big screen it would earn Sebastian an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He wouldn’t win that year, but he did get to pick and choose his roles after that. Music and V, however, always came first.

  Geoff went back to New York. He’d loved Violet since he was twenty and losing her to some rock-and-roll dude was depressing. He dated Paris Hilton for a while, but no one stirred his heart. One afternoon while at his Hampton beach house, he saw someone caught in the riptide and dashed out to save her. Turned out she was a bassoonist with the New York Symphony who lived in the Upper East Side and wore cardigans everywhere. It was a match made in Manhattan. They married and lived happily ever after.

  Spider and Mila … their story is yet to be told.

  The End

  This scene was written for Shh, Mom’s Reading Book Blog and fans of Very Bad Things

  Leo and Nora and Baby #1

  (Takes place before the events in Very Twisted Things)

  WE WERE LATE and I was antsy as hell.

  I called up to Nora who was upstairs in the loft area of Club Vita. “Let’s go, woman. We have an appointment to keep.” I pictured her surprise when she realized where we were going and what I’d planned.