On Monday morning, I make eggs and toast for Viola long before she wakes up. After scribbling a note to let her know I’ve gone to school early for my work service, I head to Redwood Prep.
My steps slow when I near the main building. The sun is just starting to rise, its long, golden fingers clawing at Redwood Prep’s steeples like a monster out to claim its due. The lawn is immaculately kept with pruned rose bushes and a bust of the founder.
Redwood Prep seems more authentic when nobody’s here. In the eerie stillness, it can’t hide how monstrous it is. Darkness climbs over the windows like poison ivy, snaking its way right into the center of the courtyard.
The front door is locked so I take the side door. My steps echo in the darkness. I head straight to the janitor’s closet, remove gloves, a broom and a mop and get to work on the first classroom.
Brahms’ Wiegenlied is playing loudly in my ears, transporting me to a world that actually makes sense. Somewhere Dutch Cross and his wicked fingers do not exist and the molten heat he rips from my body isn’t real.
As the song tickles my ear, calming and sweet, I find my pulse still isn’t slowing down.
The Halloween concert was a massive fail.
Not only did I play right into Dutch’s hands, but he knew all along that my phone was recording. Now I don’t have anything to trade with Jinx.
It’s enough to bring frustrated tears to my eyes. I’m not the damsel in distress waiting for Dutch to swoop in and save me. Hell, he might be the one to swoop in and ruin me.
I really gave it my best shot, but once again, my attempts at gaining control of my circumstances crashed and burned.
Without something to hold over my enemies, Serena and I are at their whims.
No say.
No voice.
No way out.
Gritting my teeth, I attack my cleaning duties.
I’m working on my last classroom when, in the corner of my eye, I notice a shadow moving unlike the others.
My heart quickens and I immediately wrench my earbuds out. What the hell was that?
Redwood is infested with rich, privileged gremlins, but is it possible it’s being haunted by an un-dead rich kid too?
Footsteps thump toward me.
Steady.
Calm.
Determined.
Electricity skitters over my back.
I know exactly who’s coming.
And I would rather have taken my chances with a Redwood ghost.
My fingers tighten around the broom and I hold it up like a sword when Dutch steps into the classroom. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He stops, an eyebrow arched. He’s dressed in a button-down white shirt that clings to his muscles. Even from a distance, he commands the room and makes every nerve in my body stand to attention.
“I’m overseeing your work study from now on.” Dutch juts his chin at the broom. “Official orders.”
My heart picks up speed. “You’re lying.”
“Why would I be up at an hour like this if I didn’t have to, Brahms?” His eyes are colder than ice.
I step back instinctively. I’m a bundle of nerves and I hate that he can see how rattled he makes me, but I can’t control it. My body instinctively shifts to preservation mode.
If Dutch is here, it’s because he’s out for my blood.
Or worse—my pleasure.
And I don’t know which is more dangerous.
He moves further into the room, his eyes locked on me. Like his father, Dutch carries an air of chaos around him that cannot be hidden. But this morning, I sense a deeper viciousness bristling just beneath the surface.
Still keeping the broom between us, I step around the desk and give him a wide berth.
But Dutch doesn’t approach me. Instead, he runs his fingers over the windowsill overlooking the gardens.
When he pulls his hands away and rubs his fingers together, he purses his lips slightly. “You call this cleaning, Brahms?” He shakes his head. “That’s not going to work for me.”
I groan silently, already knowing what I’m in for.
For the next thirty minutes, Dutch kicks up his foot and watches me clean every nook and cranny of the classroom.
“You missed a spot,” he says, pointing to the floor.
I straighten and glare at him. “Did you take over my shifts just so you could torture me?”
“Why?” He tilts his head. “Aren’t you happy to see this face? Or would you like to set up a camera first?”
“What do you want? An apology?”
His lips curl up, a menacing smile.
Sunlight pours through the windows, highlighting his cold beauty.
Haughty.
Brutal.
Unforgiving.
There’s an impulse in my gut, urging me to walk over there and whack him with the broom stick until he’s black and blue. But not even bruises could mess up that gorgeous face.
“You must be made of pure evil if you’re willing to get up this early just to terrorize me, Dutch. Don’t you have hobbies? A life?”
Another smile flits over his face, but I’m not fooled. That grin is nothing but a flash of shiny scales on a snake.
“I see you doing a lot of talking and not enough cleaning, Brahms.” He plucks a rag from the cleaning cart and tosses it at me. It plops at my feet like a bird with clipped wings. “Get to it.”
Gone is the peace that I felt when I first arrived this morning. Anger rattles through my bloodstream, begging me to do something, anything to tip the scales in my favor.
But Dutch has me trapped. I can’t screw with my scholarship and if he really is overseeing my work study, then I don’t have a choice but to listen to him.
With a scoff, I bend down, yank the rag off the floor and turn to the window.
Dutch leans against the desk, studying me.
“I’ll pay Miller a visit today.”
I whirl around. “Did you get dirt on him?”
His frigid stare is the only answer I get.
“What do you plan to do?”
Still nothing.
With a scoff, I turn to the window. “Fine. Do what you want. I don’t care.”
The chair Dutch is sitting in creaks as he rocks it back on its hind legs. “Have you ever dated anyone?”
My eyebrows hike. What kind of question is that?
Dutch’s gaze is steady as he waits for my answer.
I frown at him. “Have you?”
“No,” he answers matter-of-factly.
I roll my eyes. “What about Paris? Or Christa? I distinctly remember seeing her hand down your pants at lunch one time.”
“Jealous?”
I scoff.
“We screwed around. That’s it. They knew it was just a good time and nothing more.”
“What a gentleman.”
He looks unfazed. “Did you ever put your hands down Hunter’s pants?”
“I don’t owe you any explanations.” I aggressively wipe the window.
“Have you even seen a guy naked before?”
“I have,” I snap.
“That time you saw me in a speedo doesn’t count.”
I turn red. Dammit. My skin is giving me away.
Dutch laughs. “I didn’t know you were that innocent, Brahms.”
My chest constricts. He sounds so smug. So self-assured.
I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone.
I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anyone.
And I don’t know how to control that.
He folds his arms over his chest. “Are you one of those girls who plans to save herself for marriage?”
I lick my lips, my eyes narrowing on him.
“Because if you are, I’d respect that.”
My eyebrows hike.
He tilts his head. “I’d marry you.”
A humorless laugh breaks free from my lips. “I would never be stupid enough to chain my life to yours. Do you think I’m insane?”
“You have to be a little insane to keep my attention as long as you have, Brahms.”
“So now your obsession with me is my fault?” I roll my eyes. “What’s with all the questions?”
“I had to check.”
“Check what?”
“That you’ve never gone past first base with a guy before,” he says confidently. “That I’m your first in everything.”
“Do you have a death wish?” My fingers tighten on the rag.
His eyes meet mine. That smug expression is still on his face.
I bristle. “What about you? How many girls have you been with?”
“Enough.”
“Which means you’ve lost count.”
He shrugs.
A cold prickle of jealousy flows through me. Which is ridiculous. Why do I care if Dutch has screwed the entire school? It’s none of my business.
Dutch chuckles as if he can sense my annoyance. “But you were the first and the only one I had on top of a piano.”
My body heats up with the reminder of our passionate kisses. Tension spreads across my shoulders.
This isn’t fair. I need him to feel as off-balance as I do.
I need him to bleed.
“Is Sol dating anyone?” I ask with a calculating smile. “You think he’d say yes if I asked him out?”
Dutch goes cold. He unfolds himself from his position on the bench, slowly, methodically. A panther stretching its legs.
I’m so aware of every move he makes that my heart starts beating in time to his footsteps.
Hatred runs wild beneath the currents of the air, but it overlaps with something even more dangerous—desire.
Punishing amber eyes drill a hole into my face. My heart thuds frantically, eager to either run away from him or move closer.
But all I can do is stand there, frozen, as Dutch moves behind me, his scent wrapping around my arms like metal bands.
My stupid heart can’t seem to get that this guy is bad for me.
It’s humiliating, this weakness.
I thought I’d banished whatever feelings I’d developed for him, but the crumbs that are left are wreaking havoc.
He’s tried to destroy me once and failed. How much more of me will he take if I give him a second opportunity?
Dutch lowers his face so his cheeks are almost pressing mine. If I tilt my head sideways—just a centimeter—his chin will brush my ear.
The temperature in the room climbs over a hundred degrees.
I’m squeezing the rag for dear life, anything to keep me still. To keep me grounded when I’m standing in the middle of a force of nature that can level hearts and minds and make wrong feel so, so right.
“No one else can have you, Brahms,” Dutch growls. “No matter how hard you fight me, no matter how hard you claw and bite and struggle, you will always be mine.”
My nostrils flare. I try to will myself to walk away, to move a safe distance, to keep from playing his stupid mind games, but I’m frozen solid.
I shiver when his lips graze the tip of my earlobe.
“I may favor you, but don’t think that you can push me because I let you get away with it.”
I’m drowning in the current, trapped against his body. Thankfully, there’s a part of me that still has room to fight.
“What do you want, Dutch? What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone? Do you want an explanation? An apology? You want me to say I should have told you I was ‘Redhead’? Don’t hold your breath. I don’t regret anything except meeting you.”
He looks down at me. His lips are curled up cruelly.
I look up. Emotions are broiling in his hazel eyes. Anger and heat and disgust and desire all crashing against each other like warring waves in a tsunami.
A spark travels through my body. It’s the same wave of power I felt that night when Dutch caught me in the changing room as my other self.
That night, he didn’t recognize me as Cadence Cooper, the scholarship kid he’d threatened to kick out of Redwood. That night, he saw a girl he wanted to impress.
He was a lot less prickly and abrasive. Almost soft when he spoke to me, almost vulnerable with the things he shared with me. And I stood there, knowing who he was and who I was and what that information meant.
I stood there and I had power.
Finally.
I could control rather than being controlled.
Whether Dutch knows it or not, him getting angry that I might be interested in Sol shows a chip in his armor. It puts a dagger in my hands and, oh, I will cherish this opportunity to swing.
“As much as you think you control me, can you control Sol? What if I said that I like him and he likes me?” I whisper tauntingly.
Let him stew in his jealousy. Let him bake in his own coffin. Why should I rescue him? Why should I show him that my body craves his the way flowers crave sunlight?
Dutch stares down at me with the early morning sunshine glinting like the flames of hell in his eyes. His jaw clenches and his muscles are coiled so tightly that I could send him springing into space with just a flick of my fingers.
“You have feelings for Sol?” he whispers.
“Maybe.”
I’m not giving him an out. He’s backed me into so many corners, pushed me to face the parts of myself that I never wanted to unleash. It’s my turn now.
Dutch slides his thumb over my bottom lip, teasing an ache that sends a gasp spiraling from my lips.
“Nice try,” he growls like an animal.
My heart thunders.
“Your body doesn’t lie, even if you do, Brahms. You’ve wanted me from the first moment you laid eyes on me, didn’t you? And there’s a part of you that can’t stand it. The same way I do.”
My breathing escapes in harsh pants and although I wish I was stronger, my knees buckle with the heat.
In a voice so soft, I wonder if I imagined it, Dutch says, “Keep talking crap about other men and maybe I really will marry you.”
My eyes widen.
His narrow with spite.
I reel back, sure that he’s playing with me or trying to get the upper hand. But Dutch’s eyes are steady on my face. He doesn’t move an inch, doesn’t take it back. Doesn’t add a biting remark.
A door down the hallway opens and slams shut.
My gaze whips in that direction. I hurry past Dutch and grab my broom again, my heartbeat drowning out every one of my thoughts.
