Bastards and Scapegoats (Twisted Legacy Duet #1) - CoraLee June Page 0,30

move. I would have been devastated had it ruined my valedictorian status.

“It’s just so unlike my brother,” Hamilton admitted. “Your mom is beautiful and definitely out of his league, but he’s the most calculating, cautious, meticulous person I know. Marrying someone he’d only been dating for a few months is completely out of character for him. I figured he’d marry someone Jack set him up with for sure. Not that I’m mad he went against that. It’s just…curious.”

I let out a huff of air. “I just want her to be happy.” There went that same damn phrase again. The more I said it, the less authentic it felt.

“And what about you?” Hamilton asked.

“What about me?”

“You can be happy too, you know,” Hamilton whispered before putting his hand back on my upper thigh. This time, I didn’t push him away.

I internally scoffed, though. I was happy. Plenty happy. I was starting school soon. I had a place to live. What more could I possibly need?

“Are you thinking about how happy you are right now?” Hamilton asked.

I sputtered. How the fuck could he read my thoughts? “I am absolutely happy,” I promised, though my tone felt forced and my teeth were clenched so tightly I thought my tooth would crack. What the fuck did it matter? I was taken care of. I was successful, right? “You could have been a therapist, you know.” I wanted to put the attention back on Hamilton. It was safer that way.

“I’ve seen enough over the years you could call me an expert.” He rubbed my thigh with his thumb, pressing the pad of it against my bare skin. I swallowed. “I found my mother when she o—died.”

My shoulders slumped, and I felt myself softening in pity for him. “I’m so sorry—”

“I didn’t tell you that for your pity, Petal. My first therapist quit after my eighth session; she told me that I was allowed to be happy and that I didn’t have to grieve my dead mother for the rest of my life. I told her to get fucked and jump off a bridge.”

My eyes widened. Well holy fuck. “She sounds like a shitty therapist.”

Hamilton nodded. “I guess what I’m trying to tell you is, you’re allowed to be unhappy. It’s easy to give ourselves permission to be happy. Happy is easy. You want to really dig through the trenches of your mind? Let yourself be anything else. I think you’d be hot as fuck while good and angry.”

Hamilton leaned in and kissed my neck. His lips tugged on my ear lobe. I squirmed in my seat as his hand drifted higher, and higher, and my eyes scanned the room. Was anyone watching?

“Relax. It’s just you and me, Petal. Let’s smell the roses a bit,” he said before pressing the tip of his middle finger against my heat.

“Please stop,” I whimpered, not meaning it at all.

“Kiss me, and I will.” Hamilton brushed his lips against mine. It was a soft question, a demand. I chased after the brief touch with my bottom lip, aching to prolong the heated touch. “Tease,” he chastised me on a breathy whisper.

“I’m not going to kiss you, Hamilton,” I promised. “You and me? We’d be a disaster.” I murmured those words painfully close to his perfect mouth before pulling away and straightening my spine.

“I can’t wait to break you, Petal.”

I picked up my Pepsi and took a sip of it before clearing my throat. “To be honest, I want you, Hamilton,” I admitted. “You’re attractive. Experienced.”

He grinned. “Well, what’s stopping you?”

“Have you ever ruined someone’s life? I mean genuinely ruined it—whether intentionally or not.” His expression turned serious. I waited for him to answer me, but he never did. I continued. “I don’t want to draw attention to myself, because I’m a product of the most painful thing to ever happen to my mother. I’m a living, breathing atonement for my existence. I’m a perfectionist and a martyr. Acting on the impulse—and this is an impulse—to kiss you would be too reckless and risky to be worth the reward. Like it or not, you’re Joseph’s brother. I don’t need your orgasms, your heated words, or your temptation, Hamilton. I’m not foolish enough to think that I am anything more than a game of pleasure to you, and I’m not willing to gamble on my mother’s shot at happiness.”

We exchanged a heated stare once more. Something passed across his expression, a break in the determined flirtatiousness of his behavior that caught me