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The call only rings once before it connects, and I smirk as I’m met with silence. Hadley has never been intimidated by me, though that doesn’t mean we don’t like to one-up each other every chance we get, even if it is as petty as who will break the silence first.
Eventually, her frustrated sigh is followed by, “Aren’t you calling to yell at me?”
“That would imply you’ve done something wrong, dear sister.”
I swear I can hear her eye roll before she says, “No, but I knew you’d be against the idea, which is why I didn’t tell you.”
“Mmm, you’d have been right.” My tone turns serious as I question, “What are you thinking by bringing her here?”
“I’m thinking that my best friend is in some serious trouble, and the only people I trust to keep her safe from this psycho are currently living under your roof.”
I sigh, pressing the pads of my fingers into my eyes in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure. “You know what this is going to do to Wilder.”
“I know. You’ll keep him in line, though?”
With a scoff, I retort, “Do you seriously think Wilder will listen to me? When it comes to her, he won’t listen to what any of us have to say.”
She’s silent for a moment, and when she speaks again, her voice is softer. “What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me, sis. I wasn’t the one who had their heart stomped over.”
“Right.” Her tone is unreadable, grating on my nerves.
“Don’t start that shit again, Hadley,” I growl angrily. For fucking ages after we graduated high school, she was insistent that my funk was because of Emilia. But it wasn’t. After the year I’d had—discovering my parents’ company was responsible for kidnapping and training children to become ruthless mercenaries, finding out I had a sister only for her to be kidnapped, working to dismantle said mercenary ring and bring down everyone responsible, and watching my mother die right in front of me after witnessing her torture one of my best friends—it’s only to be expected that I would struggle to bounce back to my normal self. Just because Emilia happened to be the final factor in that entire fiasco of a year, doesn’t mean she had anything to do with it.
“Okay, I won’t. I will tell you the same thing I told her, however. The three of you need to get past this. You’re all important to the guys and me, and I’m sick of being put in the middle, unable to mention her when I’m around you and Wilder, and then forbidden to talk about either of you with her. It has to stop. The three of youhaveto work it out.”
Forbidden, huh?That piques my curiosity. Is that because Emilia didn’t want to be reminded of us? Or because she didn’t want the reminder of her past mistakes?
“Wilder’s the one you need to have this conversation with, not me.”
“Well, you’re the one I’m talking to right now, and since you’re so unaffected by Emilia’s presence, you can be the one to start fixing things.” Her tone makes it clear that she doesn’t believe for one second that I’munaffected, and I just grunt in acknowledgment, not wanting to go around in circles with her.
“Fine,” I hiss reluctantly. My goddamn motherfucking sister knows I can never say no to her. She’s the one person I’d do anything for. The one person who can get me to do the exact opposite of what I want to do. “But I’m not making any promises. You know Wilder won’t take this well.”
Hadley sighs, but she knows I’m right. “Just don’t hurt her too much.”
When we hang up, I pull up my chat with Wilder and fire off a text, telling him to come home before classes in the morning. Better to rip the Band-Aid off before he accidentally stumbles across her on his own. God only knows how he would react to that.
Knowing how manic it can be when there’s a party at the frat house, I’m not expecting a response, so I drop my phone onto my covers and allow my eyes to trail skyward to where Emilia rests in the room above mine, as I wonder what she’s doing at this moment. I wonder how it feels to know she’s trespassing on our playground once again. Is she scared? ‘Cause she should be. Of more than just her stalker.
Wilder is more than just a little unhinged, and while most of the time his brand of crazy comes out in the weird shit he says and does, in the lack of fucks he gives and the quirky way he dresses, I’ve seen the flip side of that switch when someone gets on his bad side. The crazy glint in his eye is not something you should take lightly, and I have a feeling Emilia is going to get a rude awakening to his instability.
Chapter4
EMILIA
Itoss and turn all night, my mind unable to shut off after the events of the last twelve hours, not to mention the fact that one of the guys I’ve actively beennotthinking about for the last four years is sleeping on the floor below me. And I’m inside his fucking house. How the hell did my whole life get turned upside down in less than a day?
And,holy hell, did Hawk look good. So good.Toogood. I can’t figure out if he’s gotten even better looking since I last saw him or if I downplayed his hotness in my mind. He was always one of those guys who was abstractly attractive, but until our senior year, I’d never reallylookedat him. He was an arrogant asshole, and no matter how hot he was, it wasn’t enough to make me overlook that. Not that it would have mattered if I had. Until Hadley showed up, Hawk had never looked at me twice. He probably didn’t even know my name.
I only ended up on his radar because Hadley incurred his wrath. Later, when he discovered Hadley was his sister, and their relationship went from hate to one of reluctant siblings united in their cause to destroy their parents, we were forced to be around each other. It was only then that I really started noticing just how stupidly attractive he was. I’d catch myself staring at him, and even though I still hated him and didn’t trust him one bit around Hadley, I couldn’t deny how his close proximity set my body on fire in a way I’d never experienced before.
Still, I never let myself act on it. It was he who made the first move one night when Hadley and the guys were away, and he invited me to watch a movie with him. I thought he was just bored, and outside of his circle of friends, there was no one else he could hang out with. But after falling asleep and waking up to him getting me off…damn.I thought for sure I was still dreaming.
Hawk’s eyessimmer as they rake over me. “You’re such a tease, Emilia. You think I don’t notice the extra sway of your hips when I’m looking or your fuck me eyes, but I do.”
Stepping into me until my breasts brush against his chest, my nipples harden into peaks as he stares down at me with nothing but undisguised heat burning in his gaze. His hands move to rest on my hips, the heat burning my skin, before he slides them around to palm my ass. With a tight squeeze, he uses his hold to grind against me.
