When I came to stand, I found that Jack was still watching me, and wariness was written all over his features. “Don’t cry.”
I arched my brows. Funny how, now that he’d said it, crying was the last thing I felt like doing. “Why would I cry?”
I saw a flicker of laughter in his eyes but not the mean kind. There may have even been some respect there—albeit grudging.
He shifted closer, his voice low so no one could overhear us. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”
I peeked past him and saw that I was indeed still the center of attention—as if there had ever been any doubt.
But here’s the thing these losers hadn’t factored into their stupid prank.
I was born to be the center of attention. I’d been raised to live and breathe the philosophy: no such thing as bad publicity. Anyone who was anyone could tell you that. It wasn’t about how you got the attention; it was how you spun it.
I took a slight step away from Jack and shoved my shoulders back. His eyes glinted with something, and for a second there, I had the weird notion that we were communicating. He knew exactly what I was about to do… and he approved.
Not that I needed the approval of Mr. Judgy over here, but I’d take an ally wherever I could find one right about now.
It was the shoes that deserved most of the credit really. They helped me remember exactly who I was. I bent one knee slightly and stuck my hip out to the side. These heels did killer things for my ass, but a girl had to work with what she was given.
And that was a hoodie.
Not the sexiest of accessories, the hoodie, but no one should ever underestimate my ability to dress.
Or undress.
I held Jack’s gaze as I shifted the sweatshirt down, down, down so my shoulders were exposed along with just enough cleavage to make a grown man weep.
Sure enough, Jack’s eyes darkened. His gaze dropped down, taking in the view. When he looked back up, I was biting my lower lip, full on sex goddess pose.
But he wasn’t the one I was working it for, and he knew it. He shook his head at me, grudging amusement warring with disapproval. “You trying to make sure every girl here has it in for you?”
My sexy expression faltered a bit as genuine laughter made me smile. “Just want to make sure I give as good as I get.”
“So, pissing them off even more is your strategy then,” he said, his voice a sexy low growl that made me shiver. But I’d be damned if I tugged up that sweatshirt now that I had every guy drooling.
I shrugged one exposed shoulder. “I’m not here to make friends.”
“Then why are you here?” His eyes narrowed. “For Brandon?”
I kept my expression bland, even though my stomach gave a little jolt at his spot-on guess.
He moved in closer, and I realized he was once again shielding my body from view. “My, my, aren’t we chivalrous?” I teased as he moved so close his chest brushed against mine. I could have moved away, but his heat wasn’t exactly unwelcome. In fact, I had a serious urge to cuddle up against him.
I didn’t. I wouldn’t.
But I wanted to.
This close, I could see the stubble on his chin and smell his delicious manly scent. There was something so rugged about him—he was built but not ripped. He had muscles, but the kind that came from actual work, not the gym. And the dark look in his eyes, it was filled with passion and danger.
No, not danger. Just… dangerous to me. Why? Because he saw me. Every time his eyes met mine, I got the distinctly jarring notion that he saw straight through me.
His voice was so low I could feel the rumble. “What are you doing here, Lila?”
I blinked up at him, feigning the kind of innocence I’d never once known. Even as a kid I hadn’t been an innocent.
Brandon’s appearance at my side saved me from having to answer.
“Hey,” he said, his voice winded from having run off to his truck and back. His eyes were apologetic but at least not pitying. “This was all I could find, sorry.”
He handed over some guy sweats that would make me look like a couch potato. I forced a smile. “Thanks, Brandon.”
Amber rushed over, hot on his heels. Her pretty, heart-shaped face was puckered up in concern.
God, I hated this girl.
Why? No reason. She just represented everything I hated about the females of our species. She was all weak and vulnerable and nauseatingly obedient. She was the classic good girl. America’s sweetheart. The girl next door. The goody-two-shoes, the—
Hold on a second, I just threw up a little in my mouth.
But then, she did something that made me want to hurl even more.
She hugged me.
“I am so sorry,” Amber said, her voice little more than a whisper. She pulled back, and her dark brown ponytail swung around her shoulders. When she tilted her head to the side, she reminded me exactly of the chocolate lab we’d had as a kid.
The dog my dad put down after it took a dump in his loafers.
I hated that dog.
Well, I’d loved it back then. I wasn’t totally heartless. But I’d grown to hate it over time. Who could love anything that made you feel so bad whenever you thought about it?
She eyed me now, and then she glanced down at my soaked clothes with a little moan. When she looked up, her eyes were wide and filled with tears. “I would never have let them do it if I’d known you’d only come with… that.” She cast a hand toward my clothes as though they were rags. She couldn’t possibly know that those clothes she and her friends had drowned cost more than their freakin’ junkyard trucks.
She cast those big brown cow eyes toward Jack and Brandon. Jack muttered something about how it wasn’t her fault, and Brandon actually wrapped an arm around her shoulders in comfort.
What the… they were comforting her?
I drew in a deep steady breath. I would not blow up at her. That would only make her even more pathetic and pitiable, and the last thing I needed was to help her look like Snow White and me the evil witch.
That was exactly what she wanted, the conniving little—
“I thought you’d have brought a change of clothes,” she continued, her lower lip trembling with emotion. Her eyes moved up to meet mine. Damn, she was good. “I mean, these aren’t really practical, are they?” She cast a quick look to the guys, and she did a piss poor job of trying to hide a flicker of amusement. “I’ve never seen anyone wear clothes like that to a bonfire.”
They both had the audacity to give her a little smile in return. Like she’d just said something so very clever.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Instead, I looked to Jack. “Bonfire?”
He arched his brows. “Did I forget to mention that?”
“I would have brought something else to change into if I’d known this was going to be an evening event.”
“Evening event,” Amber repeated with a giggle. She bit her lip when I shot her a look. “Sorry.”
And there I went, looking like the big bad witch again. I turned back to Jack. “I would have brought something else if I’d known.”
He smirked. “Trust me, Princess, you wouldn’t want any of your designer clothes getting smoky.”
Ugh, this guy was annoying. So smug. So cocky. Fine, so he knew me. Although, how he knew about my father’s nickname for me was anyone’s guess. All I knew was every time he called me Princess, I wanted to punch him in the throat.
I narrowed my eyes, but Brandon stepped in before I could reply. “Look, why don’t I take you home, and you can get changed.”
Yes. A ride home. Alone. With Brandon. A smug smile crept across my lips. “That sounds—”
“Unnecessary,” Jack finished. He gestured toward the clothes that Brandon had handed me. Giant sweats that would have been better suited to a prison yard than a high school party. Dark amusement had his eyes dancing as they met mine.
This was a challenge. He was challenging me.
Or maybe he w
as trying to be helpful in his own smug, superior way. I glanced from him to Brandon to Amber—all of whom seemed to be waiting to see what I’d do. Would I stay, be a good sport and weather the embarrassment of wearing ugly sweats, or would I be a diva and demand to be taken home so I could look good?
I stifled a sigh as I met Jack’s knowing gaze.
Dammit. There was only one solution, wasn’t there?
“No, that’s fine,” I said, turning to Brandon with a smile that rivaled Amber’s for sweetness.
Take that, Snow White.
I reached for his hand and tugged him away from the others. “Brandon, will you help me find a place to change?”
I looked back and flashed Amber an entirely different sort of smile. One no one in her right mind would call sweet. She and her friends might have won the battle, but I planned to win the war.
And Brandon? I squeezed his arm and let him help me over a fallen tree trunk like I was some helpless female.
Yup, when it came to winning Brandon, make no mistake about it.
This was war.
Seven
Jack
To think, for a second there, I’d actually felt sorry for the girl.
Amber and I watched now from the opposite side of the bonfire as Lila laughed and flirted with Brandon.
“She’s relentless,” I muttered. We’d watched them for hours now. First, as Brandon led her back to the group—the perfect Prince Charming to her helpless princess routine. Then, as he’d made her a hot dog, and she’d managed to make hot-dog eating an event that will now feature prominently in my wet dreams. And now… this.
“Has she seriously never roasted marshmallows before?” Amber’s tone was a mix of amusement, sadness, and maybe a little awe.
I shook my head. “If she has, then she’s a damn good actress.”
While she was an actress, and she was good, I’d started to think that I could see through her routines. But tonight, she was fooling all of us with this whole sweetheart act. Her hair had dried in loose waves around her makeupless face, and she seemed just fine with it, just like she somehow managed to make those awful sweats look adorable. She was swimming in them, and that only made her look touchable and soft as opposed to the untouchable goddess who’d stripped down to her bikini in front of us earlier. But it was the smiles and the laughter that really threw me. Gone was the uptight, prissy little snot, and in her place was a laidback, funny, playful teenage girl. If this was an act—and it was, I mean it had to be—then she was starting to fool even me. And I knew better. I knew what she was about.
Okay, fine. Maybe she’d fooled me once back in her apartment when she’d inexplicably hit on me to make some sort of point to her sister. That conversation kept coming back to me as I watched her tonight, but it made less sense than ever.
All I knew was the closer she got to Brandon, the more I wanted to leap between the two of them and tear them apart.
Not because I was jealous. I wasn’t. Sure, she was drop-dead beautiful. And yeah, there might have been a moment there when she’d come out of the lake looking hot as hell. When she’d discovered her clothes were ruined, I might have felt a surge of pity. That vulnerable, naked look in her eyes hadn’t lasted long, but it had been long enough to knock the wind out of me.
For a second there, she’d seemed so fragile. Vulnerable, and hurt, and sad and… and then the moment had passed, and she’d become the firecracker I’d come to know throughout the course of this interminably long day.
I should go home. I really should. Any other night I would have, but something about this didn’t feel right. I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes off them… off her. The thought of leaving her here alone with Brandon brought up a tension I didn’t want to describe.
It wasn’t jealousy. It wasn’t.
But it was close.
I didn’t want to think about it too much, so instead, I forced my gaze away to look over at Amber.
Poor Amber. Still the same sweet, besotted girl Brandon and I had known from childhood. She’d moved away but had always come back over the summers. These last few, she hadn’t—she’d gone on to have a life of her own, I imagined. She never really talked about her home in Upstate New York. Once she’d moved back, it was like her years away had never happened. She picked right back up where she’d left off—with me and Brandon, and with her other friends. The girl was friends with everyone. Now, she was back in our lives for real, and thank goodness for that. Brandon deserved someone nice.
Sure, there were other “nice” girls in our class, but Brandon didn’t click with any of them. And me? Well, I’d been there done that with any girl even remotely interesting. Except for Amber. It was hard to look at her and see anything other than a sister since we’d known her our whole lives.
Amber who’d only ever had eyes for one person… and that person was currently wiping gooey marshmallow from a laughing Lila’s lips.
My chest burned at the sight, and I turned away abruptly to face Amber straight on. “You doing okay?”
She blinked and then looked back up at me. For a second there, I couldn’t read her eyes. But then the fire flared to life and so did she. Her easy smile was a little apologetic. “Is it that obvious?”
Yeah. It was. Anyone could see she had a thing for Brandon. I wasn’t a liar, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I didn’t reply directly. “It’s okay to admit you’re jealous.”
She tilted her head to the side and studied me. “Why? Are you?”
I scoffed, but it felt unnatural. Forced. “Of course not. I barely know the girl.” I could feel her eyes on me, and I shifted uncomfortably.
“I guess I was misreading things then.”
I shot her a look, and she gave me a gentle smile.
“I just thought maybe there was a spark there. When I saw you two talking, it seemed like maybe…” She trailed off with a shrug.
“Nope,” I lied. “No sparks.”
Just an inferno every time my eyes met hers, every time her body was near me, every time she was anywhere within earshot.
I could admit it. I felt desire for the girl. It was lust, plain and simple. Any red-blooded male would feel that way around Lila.
I glanced over at Brandon and forced my jaw to unclench. Good for him. Wasn’t I just thinking how he needed a nice girl? Well, Lila wasn’t exactly nice, but if she made him happy, who was I to judge?
“I hate to interrupt them,” Amber said. She was gnawing on her lower lip. “But it’s almost my curfew, and Brandon is my ride home.”
I was in action before I even knew what I was doing. I strode toward them. No, toward her. Brandon had walked away, and she stood there alone, a sweet little smile on her lips as she watched him go. They’d been off on their own, partially hidden in the trees, cozy and separate in their own little world in the forest.
But now, she was on her own… and I was here to ruin their fun. “We should head out of here,” I said when I came to a stop at her side.
She looked up at me, and that cute smile faded fast. “What are you, my dad?”
I clenched my jaw at her sharp tone. “Do you talk to Brandon like that?” I shook my head. “He’s never been big on mean girls, you know.”
She arched one perfect brow. “Jealous much?”
My nostrils flared as I fought the urge to… kiss her.
No. Not kiss her. Man, get your head on straight. I fought the urge to shout at her. The girl was beyond frustrating.
“Your sister’s home alone on her first night in town,” I reminded her.
She squinted at me like I was speaking a foreign language. “What is it with you and my sister? Do you like her or something?”
Did I like Tess? Yeah. At least, I liked her better than this high-maintenance rich girl. But then again, I didn’t really know Tess, so I kept my mouth shut.
Lila’s lips hitched up in a mocking smile that made a dimple appear on the right side of her mouth. I couldn’t look away from that dimple, an
d my hands clenched at my sides as a now familiar tension swept over me. Did she feel it, too?
My gaze shot up to hers, and I caught it—the way her pupils dilated, how the pale blue darkened with desire. How her lips parted when my eyes met hers.
I also saw the moment she shook it off, the sudden intensity replaced by a cold glint. “If boring, flat-chested brunettes are your thing, you’d be better off sticking with Amber over there.”
“Jealous much?” I shot back, echoing her words to me.
She frowned as my words hit their mark. She was jealous. Of course she was—Amber was exactly the kind of girl Brandon wanted. The kind of girl Lila could only pretend to be.
“Careful, Princess.” I leaned in a bit and lowered my voice. “Your claws are showing.”
She rolled her eyes, and her haughty expression made me want to kiss her until she dropped it. It was an act, of that I was almost positive. When it came to this girl, it was always an act.
I took another step closer, wanting to get to her the way she got to me. Why? I couldn’t really say. Maybe so I could get a glimpse of the girl underneath all the masks. “Tell me, Princess, are you pissed that Brandon likes Amber or that I prefer brunettes?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Stay away from my sister and I promise you won’t have to worry about claws or any other sharp objects being shoved into your gut.”
I let out a little huff of air that was part exasperation, part amusement, and all surprise. This girl would never cease to surprise me. Just when I thought I’d seen all her sides, the uppity debutante threatened to shank me. “I thought you didn’t like your sister.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion, as if what I’d said was beside the point. “I can’t stand her. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t kill to protect her.”
I laughed under my breath. “Are you threatening murder?”
She arched her brows. “Are you going to mess with my sister?”
“Mess with your…” I shook my head. “Why would I do that?”
She tilted her head to the side, and her scrutiny was unnerving. Like she was looking straight through me and picking apart my intestines till she got to my heart and soul.
All-American Princess (The Glitterati Files Book 1) Page 5