Chapter 1

Vera

After buckling the play collar snug around my neck, Aiden clasped a leather leash around the silver D-ring. Freshly shaved with his graying brown hair parted to the side, Aiden smirked down at me. “What would your father think of you if he knew you were at a sex club with his boss?”

“Vera!” Maddie, my best friend, said, shutting her locker and staring down at me. “Come on. We’re gonna be late for our next class!” She tugged on my wrist to pull me up from Redwood’s dirty tiled floor. “You can write your little smut story later.”

After scribbling a couple more words inside my loose-leaf notebook and pushing all the ripped-out pages into it, I grabbed all my textbooks from my locker beside Maddie’s and hurried down the hall toward World History. God, I couldn’t wait until I saved up enough money to actually get a freaking laptop because these cheap notebooks weren’t cutting it anymore.

The second bell echoed through the empty halls. I moved my short legs faster, not caring how stupid I looked to Redwood’s gang, Poison, who still lingered in the hallway, smoking blunts and harassing one of the nerdy kids like me, Akio.

“Rodriguez!” João, Poison’s leader, called to me.

“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath, stopping for a brief moment to look back at him.

“Watch my sister tonight. I’ll pay you.”

After agreeing quickly because I needed the money and we needed to get to class as soon as possible, I waved him off and continued down the hall.

“Jeez,” Maddie said, her ginger hair flying back. “You’re so fast.”

“We’re late!”

I hated being late and especially loathed all the stares from the students when we walked into the room, as if they didn’t even remember that I was in their class or something. We only had less than a year left at Redwood, and I wanted to get through them, unnoticed. That was how it had been since kindergarten.

“Well, that’s not my fault, now is it, Miss I-Love-to-Write-Smut?”

After playfully smacking her shoulder and telling her to shut it, I opened the door and slipped into World History with Mrs. Greenwich—or The Grinch, as everyone called her behind her back. Through her green cat-eye glasses, she narrowed her eyes at us.

I hugged my books to my chest, stared down at the red-tiled floor, and pushed my glasses up my nose until I found my assigned seat in the back. God, I didn’t know what the big deal was and why everyone had to stare. We were only a couple minutes late. Nothing huge.

It wasn’t like I’d strolled in halfway through class, like the infamous Blaise Harleen did every day. Nobody said a damn word to that kid though. No, if they even looked in his direction, he’d kick their asses under the bleachers after school.

I pulled out my textbook and highlighter, ready to push through another boring history lesson about some kingdom that had taken over another kingdom after some war—the driest material The Grinch could muster.

After side-eyeing me, she tucked some gray hair that had fallen out of her tight bun behind her ear and turned to the board. “As I was saying, next class, we’ll be starting a project on kingdoms and crusades. You’ll be partnered up.”

Maddie looked over her shoulder at me and smiled, scrunching her freckled nose, as if to say that I would be her partner and that I didn’t have a choice in the matter.

“Don’t get excited,” The Grinch said. “I already have you partnered.”

A collective sigh from the students echoed through the room. I slumped my shoulders forward and blew out a long breath. She was notorious for assigning students like Maddie and me to the most annoying, least hardworking people in the room.

And I hated it.

As she began listing off partners, I scanned the room to see who was left and who she could possibly pair me with. If it was one of the cheerleaders, I would literally stab my own eyes out. I hated them more than anyone—except Blaise Harleen, of course.

I didn’t think I could hate anyone more than that entitled asshole.

“Vera Rodriguez,” The Grinch said, glancing up from her clipboard at me, “and Blaise Harleen.”

Closing my eyes, I cursed under my breath and curled my hands into tight fists under the table. There I’d gone, freaking jinxing things. Of course she’d had to pair me with the one guy who couldn’t even make it to class within the first thirty minutes.

Skylar Walker glared at me, moving her red manicured fingers around a silver necklace that hung between her cleavage. I averted my gaze and turned back to my textbook, hoping people would stop staring at me for once today.

When The Grinch went back to teaching today’s material, I went back to hating my life.

Midway through class, the door opened, and Blaise Harleen sauntered into World History, refusing to even look in Mrs. Greenwich’s direction and instead heading … this way? I sucked in a breath and stared down at my textbook, heat crawling up my neck. Why the hell was he coming this way? His usual seat was on the other side of the room, next to Skylar, not … in my row!

Blaise grabbed an empty chair from the back and dragged it—literally dragged the metal legs on the tiled floor—toward me. He placed the metal chair in the middle of the aisle, not caring that he wasn’t even sitting at a desk. I gulped and dared to peek over at him.

Sculpted jaw, dark—almost black—eyes, and a body so defined that all the girls swooned over him. 

He looked over and fucking smirked at me. I turned back to my textbook and wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans.

Heat crawled up my neck, my throat drying. Why was he looking at me like that? He never looked at me, even when we had been paired up for projects in other classes. I was a plain nobody in this school, and I liked it that way. I desperately wanted to keep it that way. But for some reason, the world wanted to fuck me over today.

Once he finally turned away from me, I let out a deep breath and finally forced myself to breathe again. What the hell was I going to do? He didn’t even know we were partners, and he had just been … gawking at me.

Maddie looked over her shoulder and furrowed her brows at me, as if to ask what had happened. I sank lower in my seat and shrugged, unsure of it myself.

When the bell rang to signal the end of class, I quickly gathered up all my materials and stuffed them into my backpack, on a mission to put as much space between Blaise and me as I could. I didn’t care that we were partners. The project didn’t start until the next class.

Before I could walk away from him, Blaise grabbed my wrist in his rough, callous hand and pulled me back. Everyone in class—including The Grinch herself—stared over at us. My cheeks were burning up, my heart pounding.

“After school. Parking lot. Don’t be late.”

Then, Blaise released me and walked out of the classroom without glancing back. My eyes widened at the door, fear running through my veins. 

What the fuck did Blaise Harleen want with me? Did he really think that I would meet him in the parking lot this afternoon? No, fuck that. I had to skip—skip class, skip town maybe … 

Because Blaise Harleen wasn’t known to play nice. And I, Vera Rodriguez, didn’t know what the hell I had done to catch the eye of the most ruthless boy in town.