Page 87 of Now or Never

Of course he didn’t care. Because he was the same selfish prick he’d always been.

He only cared about himself.

She hated him.

She stared, seething, trying to remind herself that he was now her boss, and this was her first job, and she probably shouldn’t tell him all the things she was thinking.

“Chelsea,” Vincent said, his calm, deep voice breaking through her thoughts, “go.”

She shook off her anger and nodded. She’d just taken off when Jasper turned on Vincent. Their arguing voices fading in the distance with each stride.

She grabbed her keys and purse from the house in record time and floored it to the school, haphazardly parking in the front andrunning into the office. The moment she saw Ben, she knew her instincts had been right.

There was something seriously wrong.

He was slumped in the corner of the room on a blue plastic chair. The vice principal had her arm around his shoulders. His skin was greenish grey, and his eyes were barely open.

“Ben,” she said, dropping to squat in front of him. She touched his clammy cheek. “You don’t look good.”

Ben said nothing.

“He threw up just now,” the vice principal said.

Chelsea nodded. She hoped he just had a stomach bug, but a nagging voice in the back of her mind told her it was more. She tried to rationalize it away. Maybe he was having a bad reaction to something? Maybe food poisoning?

But the voice in her mind only grew.

Something’s seriously wrong.

“Can you help me get him to my car?” she asked the vice principal. “I’m taking him to the hospital.”

twenty-six

Adam exhaled a deep breath as he hopped out of his truck at Chelsea’s house and walked around the path to the backyard. She was probably at the film set, and he hoped to steal her for a couple of minutes so he could talk to her about their situation.

He’d tell her the truth, that no relationship with him would ever go long term, no matter how much he liked her. He’d try to smooth things over so they could be acquaintances, without the awkwardness. But awkwardness was better than stringing her along without ever making any kind of commitment to her.

He couldn’t do that.

He’d just turned the corner when he nearly collided with Vincent, Chelsea’s idol, storming across the lawn with a vein bulging out of his forehead.

“Everything good?” Adam asked, carefully sidestepping out of way.

Vincent fisted his hands as his head shook. “I want to kill that little fuck.”

He looked across the lawn at Jasper, who was now throwing something that looked like a croissant at the ground in a tantrum.

Hewasa little fuck.

Adam nodded, searching the area but not finding Chelsea. “Is Chelsea okay?”

Vincent’s head shook more, and Adam’s heart stopped.

“Where is she?”

Vincent took a steadying breath. “She left to get Ben. The school called. She looked scared.”

“Scared?” he nearly shouted. “What’s wrong with him?”

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