me that year.
Date them. Ha. That was funny. I never dated them.
He looks around for something, then walks away into the kitchen. Comes back a few minutes later. “Where do they keep the uniforms?”
“The what?”
“The fucking staff, Cadee. Don’t play with me. Where do they keep the clean uniforms?”
“If I knew that, do you think I’d be naked under this shirt?”
His eyes track down my legs again. Then he licks his lips and meets my gaze. His fingers go to the buttons on his cargo shorts and the next thing I know, he’s pulling them down his legs.
I back away, horrified. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Giving you my fucking boxers. I can’t take you home like this.”
I turn away as he starts pulling them off. A few seconds later they hit me on the head. “Put them on.”
I grab them and tug them up over my hips before turning back to him, catching him in the act of buttoning his shorts back up.
“Where are your shoes?”
“In the locker room.”
He leaves and comes back a few minutes later with my shoes and throws them at my feet.
I just stand there and look at him. On the outside, Cooper Valcourt is the most gorgeous example of a man a mind could conjure up. He is the image that comes to mind when you think the word ‘prince’. Or... male model. Or… Forbidden Nights dancer.
I almost laugh.
But seriously. Those blue eyes. That dark hair. The broad, muscular shoulders and the trim waist. His jaw is so cut and square, he looks like an artist’s interpretation of a man. There’s a bit of scruff on his face. Something he didn’t have much of when we were… what were we? Not friends. Not enemies, though. Not boyfriend and girlfriend either. Hell, I would not even call us lovers, though we did have sex that year.
He was… I don’t know. A… a hope, maybe. He was a hope.
I thought he was handsome back when we were together three years ago, but that was just a sneak peek of what he looks like today. He was too skinny then. And now he’s all filled out. I blow out a breath just thinking about how much he filled out while I picture him jerking on his cock last night in my doorway.
“Why are you just fucking standing there looking at me like an idiot? Put on the goddamned shoes!”
He yells it and I startle a little, then slip my feet into my sneakers, tugging on the backs a little as I hop on one foot to make them secure.
When I’m done, he grabs my hand and begins pulling me through the Glass House. We leave, not even bothering to close the door behind us, and then he’s dragging me through the woods.
I trip over a root and almost fall. But he’s still got my hand, so I don’t. But he doesn’t stop either. Just… drags me.
“Slow down!” I protest. “Your legs are way longer than mine.”
“Just keep up,” he growls.
The path he takes me on leads us right out on to the blacktop road across from his mansion. He pauses for a moment, looking around, then drags me towards the side yard in the direction of the French doors that lead to the room I’m staying in.
He’s just pulling the door open when we hear, “Well, look who it is.” And when we turn to look behind us, we find Mona sitting out on her patio smoking a cigarette. “The King and his Fugling!” She snickers, takes a drag on her cigarette, then blows the smoke out. “I can’t wait to tell Isabella that you were sneaking around in the night. Did you have a good time?” She laughs.
“Thanks for reminding me, Mona.”
“Of what?”
“That you were supposed to be the Fugling this year.”
“Fuck you!” she yells.
Cooper shoots me a smile. And it’s a real one. I know the difference. And when Cooper Valcourt smiles a real smile, and that smile is aimed at you—well, it’s very hard to remember that he’s an asshole.
Because he’s not. Not really.
Cooper Valcourt was my prince during the last half of his senior year at Prep. And I thought we were real. I believed it.
But then… the pregnancy changed everything. And from that moment on, we were enemies again. Only worse.
And as sick as it is… in this moment, I realize… I have missed him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - COOPER
I feel it when I smile at her.
I feel my whole past with Cadee Hunter.
Because