by L. A. Sable
Gorgeous Nasty Luxe
L.A. Sable
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
About the Author
Chapter 1
I’m not surprised that the guys have come to visit me in the hospital, but it throws me a bit when they show up all at once. I get the feeling that it was easier to create a united front rather than deal with the potential awkwardness of seeing me for the first time since the accident one-on-one.
And I’m not really in the hospital at this point. It’s more like a rehab center where I get to spend my time figuring out how to put one foot in front of the other again. The accident didn’t paralyze me but I needed physical therapy to strengthen my muscles after spending days in a coma and weeks stuck in bed.
I knew surprise would be the predominate emotion from the minute they walked into the room, but the absolute shock on Jayden’s face is gratifying. He’s the first one through the overly large door, one wide enough to pass a gurney through. But when he turns and sees me, the insouciant grin he always wears falls from his face.
I look different, to say the least.
The coma and recovery took off about twenty pounds and the plastic surgery to correct my broken jaw left a slimmer line than was there before. The weight loss makes my already expressive eyes seem large and doll-like, surrounded by curls of dark hair that I had a stylist come by earlier in the day to perfect. With my cream nightgown and artfully done makeup, I look like a delicate China doll reposed in a silk-lined case, beautiful and slightly unreal. Seeing me is arresting, a shock even, delicate beauty out of place in the sterile hospital room.
No matter what they expected walking in, this wouldn’t have been it.
Because it’s all deliberate, this manipulative display that encourages a desire to protect and watch over me. I want them to take one look and be willing to do anything for me because boys are about as layered as a sheet cake. I want them to look at me and see something beautiful and so fragile that it would shatter into a million pieces at one touch.
That way they’ll miss the core of steel hidden underneath.
“Wow,” Jayden blurts out, stopping so suddenly that Kai runs right into him which crushes the bouquet of roses in his hands. “You look great.”
“She got hit by a bus, idiot,” Kai grouses, as he shoves Jayden further not into the room so he’s no longer blocking the doorway. “Hitting on her can wait until after discharge, don’t you think?”
“I wasn’t, just thought she’d like to know that she’s looking good, barely a scratch on her.”
The plastic surgeon that Trish hired certainly made sure of that. And I made sure not to allow any visitors until the surgical scars had healed. My own face seems like a mask when I look in the mirror, but it’s a pretty one. I look like a version of myself that’s been put through a Photoshop filter, only the illusion is actually reality.
“You are such a dumbass.”
The tremulous smile on my face is all artifice, I’d trained myself to keep any evidence of the excruciating pain hidden away. It’s nice that they’re making things so easy for me. “I’m hanging in there.”
Asher isn’t with them, which comes as no surprise. But I have to work to keep the shock off of my face when Lukas comes slowly around the corner.
“Can I come in?” he asks, expression more sheepish than I’ve ever seen it.
“Of course,” I respond with a welcoming smile, wondering how this new piece fits into the puzzle. Lukas is a part of my plan, but I didn’t think getting to him would be this simple. “Thank you for coming.”
He shuffles forward and sets a stuffed teddy bear on the nightstand, it’s one of dozens I’ve received in the past month. “This is for you. Its belly smells like strawberries.”
I give him a small smile that’s meant to convey all the gratefulness that I don’t feel. “Does Chloe know you’re here?”
He shrugs but I catch an unidentified emotion flash across his face before his expression shutters. “Don’t really see how it matters.”
I log that tantalizing little nugget away for future reference. Trouble in paradise is something that I can work with. Lukas has never balked at anything Chloe has done up to this point, so I’m surprised that he seems so willing to court her displeasure now.
Part of me wants to ask if they’ve broken up, but I know that wouldn’t be wise. Pleasant interest will garner me sympathy, anything more than that risks showing my hand.
Regardless of what’s happened, if Chloe and Lukas aren’t already broken up then they will be by the time I’m done.
“I just don’t want to cause a problem.” My voice is small. I can’t help but wonder if this is how Chloe feels when she twists him around her finger. For all his play at being the cool guy, I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard. He can’t see all the ways she’s manipulated him or even that I’m doing the same thing now. “But I’m glad you came.”
A twisted smile touches Lukas’s lips and he has the grace to look chagrined. “She does feel bad about what happened.”
Fat chance. “I know.”
Chloe has already sent me an apology letter on personalized stationery, one that was formal enough in tone with just the right amount of sincerity that I’m certain it was written under duress, or penned by someone else entirely and she just signed her name. And she’d returned my journal. Trish told me it had been delivered via FedEx to the house and appeared intact. I’d asked Trish to burn it, along with all the others. I learned my lesson about putting my unfiltered thoughts into the world. That same trick wouldn’t work on me again.
That little stunt at the assembly, reading my most excruciating memory to the entire school, had been met with some consequences, although way less than she deserved. In addition to the apology letter, she has to take part in an anti-bullying seminar that I’ve already been invited to speak at next semester.
Bullying is hardly the word for what she did.
But I know I can’t count on the school to protect me or deliver retribution to the people who hurt me. That’s something I’ll have to take care of myself.
Jayden pulls a chair up to the side of the bed so it faces away from me and straddles it. His gaze roves over my face and I’m thankful again that I waited so long to allow them to visit. The bruises still fading on my face are artful, enough to inspire sympathy, with none of the open wounds or extreme swelling that had made me look monstrous. I look like the pretty girl on an advertisement for a domestic violence hotline.
He grins, the same sparkle in his eyes that has charmed an entire generation of girls. “I’m mad at you.”
I raise one eyebrow, ignoring the stab of pain that shoots through my temple. My headaches have been getting worse. “And why is that?”
“I’ve been trying to visit you for weeks but the nurses kept turning us away.”
The nurses have been under very strict orders to do exactly that, but I allow a kernel of truth color my words. “I wasn’t even awake for the first couple of days and I didn’t want anybody to see me that way, all banged up. I looked like the crypt keeper.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Jayden responds, waggling his eyebrows. “I can’t imagine you looking anything less
than amazing.”
I wonder if he can taste that lie on his tongue or if he’s fooling even himself. “If you say so.”
Kai comes up behind Jayden, stopping on the end of the bed. His position is a mirror of his twin brother’s on the other side. I’m struck again by how nearly identical Kai and Lukas are, nearly but not quite. Their sameness is only absolute to the casual observer because it doesn’t take long to notice the small differences that quickly snowball into a chasm that’s miles wide. Where Kai is open and relaxed, Lukas is watchful and intense. Kai’s lips are almost always smiling, while Lukas wears a perpetual smirk. Kai would never put up with someone like Chloe, but Lukas wants to see more than what lies on the surface. Their similarities end at the depth of their skin.
And it’s clear that Lukas gains something from his relationship with Chloe, whatever that might be. I simply have to find the chain that binds them together, so that I can break it.
“It’s good to see you,” Kai murmurs finally, after a brief moment of silence. He stares down at me with an expression that almost looks like worry, as if it truly concerns him to see me like this. “You had everyone worried.”
“I got really lucky,” I softly reply, letting the slightest tremor enter my voice. I feel only numbness when I think about the accident-that-was-no-accident and a deep well of cold rage that’s looking for an outlet. “It all happened so fast.”
“I bet you never want to get on one of those mini-buses again,” Jayden says with a snort. “You should tell Dean Felton that you need a golf cart to get around campus because of the trauma.”
The joke falls flat, but I make a point of giving him a small laugh. That’s the new me: always affable, always ready with a smile, a mask to cover the darkness welling up underneath.
The truth is, I could take a minibus joyriding on the Autobahn and feel nothing, but I don’t say that out loud.
“Are you ready to go back to Black Lake?” Kai asks. His gaze wanders briefly to the edge of the bed and I assume he’s wondering if it would be okay to sit. I shift my legs to the side slightly and he takes the hint, sinking down onto the mattress. “They’re planning to roll out the red carpet for you.”
“Not literally, I hope.” My tone is light despite the seething quality of my thoughts. I learned from the mistakes I made last semester. Now, I make a point of reading every notification and post that comes through the Inner Circle app. Knowledge is power and I hope to have that in spades.
And I know that I’ve been the talk of the school for the entirety of winter break, with all the speculation surrounding what happened and whether I would be back. Some people seem to think I’m a deformed monster from the accident, too ashamed to show her face, which is why I didn’t allow any visitors while I was in the hospital. Others circulate the insane idea that I died and the Bellamys are trying to keep it under wraps.
Asher had been silent on the entire episode, although he had to know about the surgery on my face because Carter paid for it. I’d seen him listed as logged into the app multiple times but he never posted or commented on anything which is strange, even for him. We haven’t so much as laid eyes on each other since the accident. His name has been on one of the dozen get-well-soon cards that I received but I’m nearly positive that Carter signed it for him.
Regardless, I know that all eyes will be on me from the moment that I step foot back on campus. And I plan to put on a show.
Lukas is the only one in the room still standing but his stance isn’t awkward, as if he enjoys staring down at me. It makes me uncomfortable and I want to ask him to sit, but this was precisely what I wanted to be: the damsel-in-distress, the Sleeping Beauty only just awakening from a prolonged slumber, the fragile bird in its gilded cage.
They need to see me as weak, so they won’t see me coming.
Someone pushed me in front of that bus, almost certainly intended to kill me. And all of them are suspects until I can prove otherwise. I plan to make whoever did this to me pay for it. But for now, I have to pretend to be the fragile victim who’s just happy to be alive.
I remind myself of that as I stare up into Lukas’s silver eyes. They remind me of a bird-of-prey catching the twitch of a mouse in the underbrush as he watches me. Not for the first time, I hate that I can’t read the expression in that mercurial gaze. Of these three, he’s the one I’ll have to work the hardest to turn to my side.
But he’s here, I remind myself. I need to capitalize on that.
“What did you guys do over break?” I ask. “Anything wild?”
“Nothing as wild as getting hit by a bus,” Lukas murmurs. His phone vibrates in his pocket and he takes it out to glance at the screen. A frown briefly touches his lips before his expression clears and he stuffs the phone back in his pocket. “Hanging out, getting drunk, watching Bellamy go on a few recreational benders.”
I can’t stop my eyebrows from going up at the mention of Asher. “He’s been hitting it hard, huh?”
The guys exchange glances. There’s a moment of silence that Jayden finally breaks. “He’s been weird for the past few months. Especially since—”
Kai cuts him off quickly. “Since school got out. It’s nothing for you to worry about.” He pats me on the knee, characteristic smile only slightly wilted. “Asher probably just has something on his mind.”
Like guilt? I have to bite down on my tongue to keep from asking the questions burning in my mind. It’s obvious from their faces that there is something they aren’t telling me. I want to push the issue, but that would be outside the bounds of the character I’ve chosen to play.
Could it have been Asher who pushed me? The mere thought of it fills me with a sick sort of shame, one of few things I’ve felt besides rage since the accident. I had slept with him, let him inside of me. What did it make me that I hadn’t seen him for what he truly is?
It makes me ashamed of who I used to be, so weak that I couldn’t see past a handsome face and a bad boy persona.
I was a simpleton, so overwhelmed by the pomp and elegance of being at North Lake that I ignored everything I knew about human behavior. It’s just like back in the Bronx where you survived by watching your step and never backing down. Gang colors were traded for expensively tailored uniforms but the psychology of it is precisely the same.
Except now I need to use new tools to fight. I have to become like them, hide the darkness behind fancy clothes and a fake smile.
“I’m going to need help when we get back to school.” My hand reaches for the water cup on my side table and I ensure that the trembling in my fingers is clear for them to see. Without me having to ask, both Kai and Jayden reach forward at the same time to grab the cup. Kai gets to it first and helps me bring it to my lips with a smug smile while Jayden glares. Leaning back, I look at them with what I hope is an innocently hopeful expression on my face. “Do you think one of you guys could bring my books to class for me? I’m not supposed to carry weight for a few more weeks.”
“Sure,” Kai replies eagerly at the same time that Jayden says, “Of course.”
They immediately turn on each other, which is precisely what I hoped.
“You only have one class with her?” Jayden grouses, glaring over his shoulder. “What are you going to do, take her to her class and then run across campus like an idiot? Don’t be stupid.”
But Kai is quick with a rejoinder. “And you only have two classes together so I could ask your dumbass the same thing.”
“You don’t have to argue about it,” I implore, trying my best to keep the satisfaction out of my voice. Lukas is watching me closely, as if trying to read something on my face. I have to tread gently. “Dean Felton will give whoever’s escorting me a hall pass so they don’t get demerits for being late. But I don’t want you guys to feel like you have to help, he can just assign a first year to do it.”
They both ignore me.
“Let’s be fair about this,” Kai says, scooting forward on the bed. “How about rock, paper, scissors
?”
Jayden scoffs. “You always cheat at that.”
“How do you cheat at fucking rock, paper, scissors?”
“You hesitate, for like a half-second before throwing down your choice. That’s cheating.”
Lukas makes a disgusted sound. “Why don’t you two idiots just alternate days and stop being so stupid about it?”
“Fine,” Kai says with a shrug, as if they hadn’t just been in a heated discussion about it. “You take A days and I’ll take B.”
“I guess that works.” Jayden turns back to me with a wink. “Glad we got that worked out without drawing blood.”
I’m not. But if they won’t fight over this, then I’ll just find something else.
“Are you looking forward to going back?” Lukas asks, abruptly. His body is completely still, pose relaxed but frozen. Most people would shift from one foot to the other or do something with their hands to relieve tension. But Lukas seems entirely comfortable in his own skin with no need for the even the smallest tell. He probably has an amazing poker face.
“I really am,” I answer, eyes widening ever so slightly as I look up at him. From this vantage point, I hope to appear as small and harmless as possible. “Things were hard at first, but I think I’ve finally found a place there.”
“That’s definitely one word for it.”
I sense the faint note of sarcasm in his voice.
The vote had settled in the way I expected. Whether I would become a Proli was really the only variable, and I’d narrowly avoided that fate, so had Charlie for that matter. She hadn’t reached out to me again after I’d told her I wouldn’t be allowing visitors for a while. I can’t decide if the radio silence is a function of her taking offense or avoiding me out of guilt. For now, it doesn’t matter.