Page 177 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11
I looked down at another text from Sophie: “And if you’re wearing glasses when I see you, I’ll disown you.”
I laughed. I wasn’t going to wear my glasses again just because Axel suddenly decided he liked them. He didn’t control me. And I’d worked so hard to convince my dad to let me get contacts. I texted her back. “Axel can bite me.”
“Atta girl. I bet he will want to bite you when you show up in his jacket.”
I rolled my eyes.Unlikely.I eyed the jacket.Here goes nothing.I shrugged on Axel’s varsity jacket before I had a chance to change my mind. His expensive cologne made me sigh. It would be a lot easier to not drool over him if he didn’t smell so damned good. I walked over to my window overlooking New York City. I took a deep breath and raised my head a little. Sure, yesterday hadn’t gone exactly as planned. But today was going to be better. This was still my year.
I walked out of my room and over to Liam’s. I knocked before opening the door. “Almost ready for day two of hell?”
He laughed as he sat up in bed.
Why was he still in bed? We needed to leave in ten minutes. He knew how much I hated being late for things. “And hurry, please,” I said. “I can’t be late.” The only good thing aboutyesterday was that Mr. Hill didn’t yell at me once. He would if I was late though.
“We’re not going to be late, Scar. Dad’s never late for anything. And now that he’s our teacher…”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Hence the day two of hell? You’ve always acted like high school is terrible, but it’s actually kind of fun,” he said with a smile.
Were we even going to the same school? It was not fun. It was a chess game of social standing. But unlike chess, I was bad at this game. “Easy for you to say. You haven’t been waiting all night to find out if you’re grounded.” So what if I rolled my skirt at school? Everyone did. But not everyone had a controlling father who took a job at said school just to keep an eye on them.
Liam stood up and stretched.
God, he was going to make me late. “You have eight minutes,” I said. I hurried down the stairs and into the kitchen.
When my mom saw me, she slid a waffle across the kitchen counter at me. “You’re wearing Axel’s jacket again today, I see.”
“Mhm.” I could tell she’d been dying to ask me about it when she saw me come home from school yesterday. She was probably hoping I’d just tell her what happened. But…I didn’t exactly know what had happened so what was there to say?
She put her chin in her hand as she stared at me. “So…does that mean you and Axel are back together?”
Back togetherwas a very generous way to put it. “We dated in preschool. It hardly counts.” Saying it out loud hurt my heart a little. And I knew my mom could tell.
She raised her eyebrows at me. “You two have been glued at the hip your whole lives.”
“As friends. And we’re still just friends.”
“Really? When I was in school, wearing a guy’s varsity jacket meant you were dating.”
“Well, that was a bajillion years ago, mom.”
My father laughed as he walked into the kitchen. “If your mom is a bajillion years old, I don’t want to know how old that makes me.”
My mom smiled up at him and I looked away as the two of them kissed.
“For the record,” my father said, “I came to the same conclusion as your mother about the jacket. But Axel was just being a gentleman because Scarlett was dressed inappropriately at school yesterday.” He stared at me. “And today. Hopefully he’ll let her keep it.”
“I’m not dressed inappropriately,” I said. Not even a little bit. My dad had made sure of that when he’d confiscated my Odegaards last night. I was back to wearing flats like a peasant.
“Speaking of which…we should probably let you know how long you’re grounded for. Right, Penny?”
My mom nodded her head.
I was really hoping when they said they needed to talk about it last night, that it meant that my mom would make my grounding suddenly disappear. Like she usually did. Besides, I’d already handed over my contraband high heels.
“I know I originally said a month…” my dad’s voice trailed off. “But I think a week will suffice.”
A week?But that meant I’d miss the start-of-school party on Friday night. “Dad, you saw the way the other girls at Empire High dress. I wasn’t wearing anything different than they were. I shouldn’t be grounded at all.”
