by Dakota Lee
Broken Princess
VAN DER BORNE UNIVERSITY BOOK 2
Dakota Lee
Broken Princess
Copyright © 2021 Dakota Lee
All rights reserved.
Cover Photographer: elainenadiv
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* * *
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.
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Contents
Author’s Note
About the book
Logan
Prologue
1. Jordanna
2. Jordanna
3. Jordanna
4. Jordanna
5. Jordanna
6. Logan
7. Logan
8. Jordanna
9. Jordanna
10. Jordanna
11. Jordanna
12. Jordanna
13. Jordanna
14. Logan
15. Logan
16. Jordanna
17. Logan
18. Logan
19. Jordanna
20. Jordanna
21. Logan
22. Logan
23. Logan
24. Jordanna
25. Logan
26. Jordanna
27. Jordanna
28. Logan
29. Logan
30. Logan
31. Jordanna
32. Logan
33. Logan
34. Jordanna
35. Jordanna
36. Jordanna
37. Jordanna
38. Jordanna
39. Logan
40. Jordanna
41. Jordanna
42. Logan
43. Jordanna
44. Jordanna
Epilogue
Sneak Peek: Van der Borne University Book Three
1. Prologue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Dakota Lee
Author’s Note
Broken Princess is a new adult, dark college, bully romance intended for mature readers, 18+.
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This is book two of a trilogy and ends on a cliffhanger.
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This mature new adult romance contains bullying, dubious situations, blackmail, crude language, and intense sexual content that some readers might find triggering or offensive.
Please proceed with caution.
About the book
Lies. Games. Betrayal
These are the words on repeat in my head ever since I found out the truth. He earned my trust, stole my heart, then discarded me like I was an inconvenience. All while laughing at my pain and mocking my despair.
Heartache. Pain. Anger
These are the things I feel whenever I think about how they knocked me down and stepped over my bleeding body.
Broken.
Now I’m back. Piecing myself together one jagged shard at a time. One smile, one touch one kiss and it all comes rushing back. Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice, never gonna happen.
This time when the world burns, I’ll be the one standing over the ash that remains.
The lies we tell…
Logan
It's been nine agonizing days since that day, and every time I see her in class, or pass her walking through campus, I hate myself a little more. Today, our eyes met across the aisle in our Poly Sci class, and she held my gaze. First came the hurt and sadness. Then she lifted her chin, defiant and angry.
Those beautiful eyes flashed with hatred. I watched it all. It’s what I deserved, since I’m the one who turned our relationship to rubble.
I’ll never be able to explain why I did it, but I take solace in knowing that my position as King is still intact. Everyone’s back with the program, and after the semester ends next week, I’ll never have to see her again.
Prologue
Winter break went by faster than I imagined and once again the first day of a new semester looms before me. I started my vacation in a dark place, but the weeks I spent on the beach have helped me heal. I'm stronger now, ready to face them. To face him.
They played their twisted game, and I lost. But only because I didn't know there was a game to be played, or the rules of engagement. I do now.
I left school a broken, empty shell of myself. Last semester, the only thing I wanted was to get away from Van der Borne University. Now I'm going back to reclaim my dignity from the beautiful bastards that sought to strip me of everything good in my life because it amused them.
I finger the key on the thin silver chain around my neck that was delivered in a sapphire jewelry box on Christmas Eve. Inside was a note card written in an unfamiliar scrawl.
The missive gave my mind something else to focus on other than the pain. I buried the note in the bottom of my suitcase so mom and Summer wouldn’t see it.
Know thy self, know thy enemy, it said. The BP’s are my enemies and according to the writer, this shiny piece of cut metal is a clue to dismantling their secrets.
I guess, in a way, I should thank Logan and his friends for what they did. I’m stronger now, and I have a new purpose for showing up at school. Round one definitely went to the Beautiful People, but round two clears the board for new players.
They destroyed the naïve charity case they toyed with, along with her virginal innocence. The stage is reset for a new game. I want them all to pay, and there’s only one rule.
Audentes Fortuna Iuvat.
One
Jordanna
“Honey, I wish you’d tell me what happened between you and Robbie.”
My mother’s been hounding me, the entire break, trying to figure out why we broke up. I didn’t realize she was such a fan of our relationship, seeing how she used to tell me we spent way too much time together.
“Mom, there’s nothing to tell. The distance was too much, so he moved on with somebody else.”
“Almost two years and you just call it quits when it gets a little hard?”
If only it were that simple. But I can’t tell her what really happened. That finding Robbie with Simone set me on a path where my vision was so out of focus, I couldn’t see I was being played.
“Is the breakup the only reason you’ve finally stopped trying to get me to let you transfer back to Carryville?”
More like the mess I got dragged into ruined my chances for going back. A member from the scholarship committee was at the auction and saw Logan’s sculpture.
My stomach roils at the memory of when a private moment between us became public. No. She can never know any of it. Mom has en
ough to deal with. Step-doofus’ trial is coming up, and I don’t want to add another embarrassing scandal to the mix. I guess I have VDU’s history of secrecy to thank for why what happened at the auction isn’t front page news.
It’s time to distract her from this line of questioning. “VDU raised my scholarship amount. Besides, students who graduate from there have job opportunities at some of the top companies in the world. It’s like you said, I should focus on how lucky I am to have this chance.”
“Your time at the beach has done wonders for your mood.” Her smile matches the joy in her voice. “You were so morose when you came home at the start of the break.”
Two heartbreaks in under six months will do that to you.
I watch her transfer items from one purse to another. “Are you sure you want to head back to campus so soon?”
Avoiding the inevitable won’t make this any easier. “I’m sure. I wanna take my time unpacking and getting settled back in before the first day of classes.”
She flicks off the light in the kitchen and tells me she’ll meet me in the car in ten minutes. Summer’s at a friend’s house, so it’s just the two of us on the ride to school. Mom spends most of the drive talking about her latest client, and I’m happy to let her prattle on about her vision for their master bedroom, because it means she’s not asking me any more questions that I can’t answer about my personal life.
I had no expectations for what I would see when I got back to campus, so I’m not sure why I feel a sense of disappointment when I realize nothing looks or feels different as we pass through the golden gates of my academic cage.
I grab my luggage out of the trunk, say goodbye to my mother at the curb, and promise to call more often than I did last semester.
Making my way across the lobby of my dorm, I bypass the line for the elevator, heading directly for the back staircase; not wanting to be out in the open any longer than necessary.
“New year. Same dorm. Different bullshit.” Kassidy says, greeting me at the door. “But one bright spot is you and I are still roomies.” She pulls me in for a hug. “Jordanna, I can’t tell you how happy I am you came back. I wasn’t sure you would even after the reset.”
I ignored Kassidy’s calls and texts the first week I was home, lumping her in with all the other elitist assholes from Kingsley Hollow. Then I realized she didn’t deserve my anger. Kassidy may have convinced me to go to their parties, and to give Logan a chance, but she was just as pissed as I was when she found out he only pretended to care about me; so he could fuck me over, and win his bet.
When my hurt, anger and embarrassment settled, we called and texted each other every day. If someone forced me at gunpoint to find a silver lining in all this, I’d have to say my friendship with Kassidy is the one good thing to come out of the hell scape that punctuated last semester.
“What can I say? Three weeks with you and your family convinced me I shouldn’t let the beautiful people win. They meant to run me out of school, now they have to deal with failing at that.”
I know from the notifications I’m getting on Prospectus that most of the students moved back on campus in the middle of January. So by their standards, I’m late, and lame, for not showing up for any of their pre-semester social activities.
Kassidy pulls a lock of hair in front of her eyes, making a cutting motion with her fingers. “You know the parents train these kids not to take failure as an answer, right? They’ll probably try again.”
“Let them. I have nothing left to lose. And before you say my pride, let me remind you, that I gave up my virginity to a guy who bet he could take it. A guy who instructed his friends to harass and bully me every chance they got. Someone who had no problem making a photo sculpture of me in the most intimate moments of my life. So nope. No pride left.”
Kassidy falls silent. What else can she say? We all know what happened and ignoring it won’t help. She told me they pulled Logan’s sculpture from display, because I didn’t sign a release to have my face shared with the world.
Not because of the very obvious curve of breasts, hips and ass molded in clay, or because the photos show snippets of my body from an angle that I know means he was between my legs. They didn’t pull the sculpture because it was indecent, but because the artist didn’t have a signed release. The elite are so insulated around here, they could probably get away with murder.
Kassidy leaves me to unpack. Afterwards, I settle onto my bed to read the first chapters for my history class until she suggests dinner. It doesn’t take much to get her to agree to order takeout and watch a movie instead of slogging down to the cafeteria.
I’m here, and I’m going to make the best of it, but I’m not ready to walk through the place where my humiliation began just yet.
Logan
My door slams shut, jolting me awake. Through swollen lids, I watch Bella walk towards my bed.
“Did you know?”
“Know what?” I mumble into my pillow.
“Your plaything is back on campus.”
It’s never good news when she comes to my room. Classes haven’t even started, and she’s here starting shit, already. “So.”
“So the plan was to humiliate her, so she’d go back to wherever she came from.”
I shift onto my side. Bella’s wearing a romper and heels as if she just came from a photoshoot, or a club. I’m sure neither is the case. She’s wearing this outfit because it’s an attention grabber and she’s all about attention.
“I think revealing my sculpture in front of members of Carryville’s scholarship committee might’ve ruined that option for her.”
“Still, no one else would’ve come back here after what we did. But she did, and it sounds like she’s staying. Have you seen her?”
I hear the challenge in her voice. “Bella, you just barged into my room and woke me up. As you can see, I’m alone. You and I were at a lot of the same places before and after your trip to Paris, and don’t think I don’t know you had people spying on me while you were away. So tell me, when would I have seen her?”
She purses her lips, thinking of how to respond. She thought I didn’t know about her having me tailed, because she was still looking for a way to claim the VP position even after I won the bet. Fucking amateur.
“Well, we need to come up with a new plan.”
Bella’s a heartless bitch. Her father’s connections are the only reason I keep her around. Unlike my friends, I had a week of relaxing at home and then I was in the trenches. I worked at Wilmington Kurt during the day, and attended mixers and dinners for McKay Media on the weekends and evenings, to appease my father who heard about the shit that went down at the auction.
I came back to campus yesterday and was up late dealing with back to school party details. Now she’s cut into the one bit of time when I’m finally getting some sleep.
“Bella, I’m fucking wrecked. If you insist on talking to me about this shit so early in the morning, take your fucking clothes off and ride me while you’re doing it.”
“Please. I know you probably haven’t washed the last skanks spit off of you.”
“Then get the hell out.” I pull my pillow over my head, listening for the sound of her leaving. I need to process this news alone.
Over the break I tried to find the name of the school Jordanna was transferring to. Even with my password, I couldn’t get an answer, because Dean Allen restricted that information to a file that only he could access.
What is she doing here? I know we destroyed any chance she had at going back to Carryville on the scholarship she was applying for, but with her grades, there should have been other more affordable options.
I flip onto my back. There’s no way I can sleep now after the bombshell Bella just dropped. Sitting up in bed, I grab my phone off my nightstand, pulling up Prospectus to see if anyone’s posted updates about my ex. There have been no reported sightings of her. Not at school and not over the break. That means the only way Bella could know she’s back
is if she has her spies snooping at the dorms.
My mind flips back to the bet. Our plan was to drive Jordanna away because of her economic status. Or was it because she’s the one who turned in Penn Waldorf, which caused a decline in the annual earnings of 10% of the families in Kingsley Hollow? Or was it she just irritated us all with her stubborn refusal to recognize the campus hierarchy? Shit, I don’t even know anymore, and either way, the reasons don’t seem all that valid now.
We called her a narc, but with all the shit we said and did, we could never prove she actually ratted out any of us. Not even when Patrick’s test business took a hit. And the reprimand I got after the auction doesn’t count, because I outed myself with the sculpture I made.