Defiant Princess (Boys of Oak Park Prep #2) - Callie Rose Page 0,68

going earlier in the day.

“How’s your grandpa?” He glanced over at me.

“Okay, I think. Stable. I’ll go back tomorrow and see him again.” I hesitated, wondering if I should even mention it, then added, “My grandma showed up.”

“Yeah.” His lips pursed. “I figured she would.”

“She still hates me.”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I wondered about that.”

“Did you guys know?” I asked softly, staring into the side view mirror at the streetlights disappearing behind us. “That she’d be the most mad about me cursing out the family name? ’Cause I really think she was. The other videos and pictures of me upset her. But it was that clip from my birthday that sent her over the edge. Did you know?”

Finn sighed, letting the soft sound of the radio fill the car for a second before answering. “Mason knew. Or at least, he had an idea. The Hildebrands have always been like that, I guess. It was an easy thing to exploit.”

I drummed my fingers against the door. “So you’re the reason my grandma hates me.”

“Yeah.” He dropped his chin, defeat heavy in his voice. “I guess so.”

We lapsed into silence, and I leaned back against the headrest, closing my eyes.

Finn was wrong. He wasn’t the reason my grandma hated me. None of the Princes were. What they’d done was awful and unforgivable, but they hadn’t made Jacqueline hate me. They’d paved the path for her, but she had walked it.

She could’ve listened.

She could’ve let me explain.

She could’ve shown me a scrap of human decency, even if she was furious at me.

But she hadn’t. She’d let her indignation and rage boil over and had shoved me out of her life.

“I’m sorry, Legs.” Finn shook his head. “We should never have fucked with your family. My family is… well, they’re not perfect, but I love them. We shouldn’t have gotten between you and yours.”

Twisting a strand of hair around my fingers, I blew out a breath. “Why does Mason hate my family so much?”

I almost wasn’t expecting an answer. I knew Mason despised the Hildebrands, but I’d never been able to figure out why. It hadn’t been anything I’d done to him, I knew that.

But Finn didn’t ignore the question. Instead, he hesitated for a moment, then finally spoke.

“Because he thinks your mom killed his mom.”

Chapter 18

I choked on my next breath. My head whipped to the side so fast something in my neck popped. “What?”

Finn glanced over at me, the eyes I was so used to seeing gleam with laughter clouded and heavy. They’d seemed that way for a lot of the semester actually. It made me miss the old Finn.

“His mom died nine years ago. She committed suicide.”

“Wait. What?”

My mind was reeling. I’d known Mason’s mom was dead. I remembered the look of intense, clawing grief that’d passed over his face when he talked about her once. But if she’d committed suicide nine years ago…

“My mom died ten years ago,” I choked out. “She got hit by a drunk driver. She couldn’t have—”

“Not like that.” He shot a glance at me. “Our parents knew each other when they were younger. You know that, right?”

I nodded. We had known each other when we were younger. The Princes and I. My mom hadn’t left Roseland until after Element Investments went under, until after she’d apparently turned on everyone she knew here. I’d probably been about four years old when she’d left, and I had no idea how my father fit into all of this. They must’ve met while she was still living here, but she’d obviously kept him a secret.

“Your mom left town a long time ago. But I guess before she did, she kinda snapped. She decided she hated Mason’s mom and did whatever she could to fuck with her head. I don’t know what happened, but it messed her up bad. A few years after Charlotte Hildebrand left town, his mom killed herself.”

“A few years?” I shook my head. “She killed herself years later, and he thinks it was my mom’s fault? Why?”

“Mace’s dad told him a little of what’d been going on after the fact, I guess. His mom was in therapy, on mood-stabilizing drugs, all that shit. But it wasn’t enough. Whatever your mom did to her stuck.”

I bristled. “My mom didn’t—”

But the words died before I could finish the sentence. I didn’t know what my mom had done. I’d barely known her, and all my memories of her were filtered through a child’s love and innocence. The picture