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PROLOGUE
O’Neal Lory had been taught early on by her grandparents that one mistake could undo an entire life of right decisions. That it didn’t matter if a person had been good ninety-nine percent of the time. One misstep, one snap judgment, could derail everything. She’d been that mistake for her mother. She’d witnessed the devastating consequences of what had followed. So O’Neal had listened. She’d taken a lot of right steps on the straight and narrow path laid out for her. Eighteen years of them, in fact. But the undeniable proof of her first stumble off that road arrived in her inbox on an otherwise unremarkable Thursday.
She was heading up the sidewalk to her grandparents’ house after school when her phone dinged with an unfamiliar sound. She frowned, confused for a moment, and then remembered she’d reserved that sound for a private email address she’d set up. She quickly grabbed her phone from her pocket, almost dropping it to the pavement in her haste.Oh God, oh God, oh God.
She wasn’t sure which result she was praying for. She opened the mail app she’d hidden two folders deep, and the university’s name glowed at her in all caps, the only new email in the box. Subject line:Application status.Her heartbeat picked up speed like she’d been caught committing a crime.Had she really done this? What had she been thinking?
She needed to drop the email into the trash, not even open it. The easiest way not to be tempted by something was to avoid the temptation altogether. Her teachers at St. Mary’s always said that. If you don’t want to eat the cake, don’t bake the cake. In fact, don’t even buy the sugar. But instead of dumping the email, she found herself tucking her phone into her backpack like it was contraband and glancing down the street to make sure her grandparents weren’t coming home early.
They couldnotsee this email. They’d already decided where she would be attending college. That plan had been in place since she’d moved in with them her kindergarten year and had scored freak-level on her IQ tests. Wainwright Women’s College. Her application for the private religious school located thirty minutes away had been signed, sealed, and hand-delivered months ago—on paper, in person—because of course Wainwright wouldn’t do something as gauche aselectronicapplications. Her place at Wainwright was probably already reserved with a star next to her name. With her honors-class-loaded 4.8 GPA from St. Mary’s and her grandfather being friends with the dean, she probably could’ve drawn bunny rabbits and hearts all over her application instead of writing an essay and still would’ve gotten in.
Wainwright was where she was meant to go. That school made the most sense. She wouldn’t have to live far from home. She’d get a stellar education and spiritual guidance. And it’d be familiar—a grown-up version of her current private school. Safe. Predictable. Exceedingly proper. No one would have the gall to bring up her family history. There’d be no guys to worry about. She’d be able to focus on her studies.
Growing up, she hadn’t questioned her grandparents’ plan for her.Of courseshe would go to Wainwright like her grandmother had. It would be a privilege,an honor.
But…when she’d taken a tour of the campus last year, O’Neal had discovered that they didn’t have a dedicated journalism program. She’d have to be an English major. Her heart had sunk at the news. An English degree could get her on the path to being a journalist, but the curriculum focused on reading the classics, not on digging up a story. They didn’t even have a nonfiction class. And based on the pinched expression the lady leading the tour had given O’Neal when she’d asked about a journalism program, she suspected that this woman thought journalism wasn’t exactly a respectable profession for a graduate of Wainwright. Too nosy. Too seedy. Too…impolite.
Her grandparents weren’t cheering on O’Neal’s choice of profession either, but they’d kept their opinions to veiled criticism.An English degree from Wainwright will give you so many options for careers. You’ll change your mind so many times before you graduate. You’d make such a wonderful college professor. Or an historian. Journalists have to be soaggressive.And it can be dangerous.
Aggressive. Dangerous.Literally the last words anyone would use to label O’Neal.Smart. Focused. Quiet.Those were the words normally used to describe her—if people bothered describing her at all. She suspected that if not for her mother being the subject of a regular rotation of cold case crime shows, no one would even spare her a second glance. She would just bethat girl who regularly screws up the grading curve.Orthat girl whose grandparents won’t even let her go to a school-sanctioned dance.
O’Neal checked the tree-lined street again, even though Nana and Pop wouldn’t be home for at least another hour or so, and then hustled up the front steps of the two-story Georgian she’d lived in since she was five, its flat brick front and rows of windows somehow both welcoming and fortress-like. She unlocked the front door, turned off the house alarm, and grabbed a Coke from the fridge before heading upstairs to her room. Her heart was thumping in her ears, and sweat prickled her neck as she tossed her backpack onto the bed and locked her bedroom door behind her. The navy blue backpack sitting in the middle of her pale green quilt looked like a time bomb ready to go off, and she was suddenly afraid to take out her phone.
She stalled, kicking off her penny loafers and shrugging out of her school blazer. How had she put herself in this position? The night she’d created that new email address and had filled out the online application seemed like a dream now, an out-of-body experience. She’d been riding a rare wave of self-righteous anger and had been feeling a way she’d never felt before…reckless.Daring.
It’d been allhisfault.
She’d gone over to her best friend Maya’s house to hang out, wanting to maximize the last two weeks of summer before senior year started, but when she’d knocked, Maya’s older brother, Auden, had answered instead. Home from summer-session college, fresh from swimming laps in the pool, and shirtless. The sight of him half-naked and the bright smile he’d given her had sent a rush of tingly heat through O’Neal’s body that she was sure reddened her face.
She hadn’t seen him in over a year because he’d stayed for the summer semester, and before that, she’d only seen him in passing. The days when he would hang out with her and Maya to play video games or watch a movie had ended once he’d entered high school and left them three years behind in middle school. The line between kids and adults had been drawn, and he’d stepped to the other side.
But the division hadn’t stopped O’Neal from noticing how the once lanky and awkward Auden had morphed into something truly beautiful. Tall with shaggy light brown hair, hazel eyes, and a swimmer’s body that made her imagine things she shouldn’t. Any romantic book she snuck onto her e-reader ended up with her casting Auden in the lead. But, of course, she hadn’t been the only one to notice. He’d gotten popular fast in high school and always had a pretty girl to hang out with, though he never seemed to have an official girlfriend. And none of the girls he dated were anything like O’Neal. Not that she would’ve had a chance with Auden anyway—even if her grandparentshadallowed her to date. She was just his little sister’s BFF.
But that day at Maya’s, Auden smiled with surprise and reached out to hug her. “Hey, Shaq. Long time no see.”
O’Neal groaned at the old nickname. Auden had gone through a basketball phase before settling on swimming as his sport and had decided O’Neal’s mom had secretly named her to honor Shaquille O’Neal. Her grandparents had told her that her mother had chosen it because it was an old family name on their Irish side, but really, how could O’Neal know for sure? Her mother had died before O’Neal was old enough to have a real conversation with her.
But feeling Auden’s arms around her, his bare chest warm against her, his scent laced with chlorine and sunshine, it was too much. She had to clamp her lips together so that she wouldn’t do something embarrassing like sigh—or worse,moan.She wasn’t prepared for this. She had no armor built up for being this close to someone so…everything. Gorgeous. Hot. Male. She couldn’t find the right word for Auden Blake.
She’d spent her high school years keeping her head down, her focus on her studies, and her attention away from boys. Her grandparents had ingrained in her that her school years were for schooling and that boys at that age never made things better, only worse. One wrong guy and you could ruin your whole life—or lose your life altogether like her mom had. And really, the restrictions against dating hadn’t been that hard to abide by. The guys that went to St. Mark’s, the all-male counterpart to St. Mary’s, were…fine. Some smart. Some obnoxious. Some so rich they acted like having money was personality enough. She hadn’t found herself drawing hearts in her notebooks over any of them. But during that brief hug from Auden, she wondered if a derailment might be worth the consequences.
“Hey,” she said, breathless and realizing she’d held on to him a little too long. She quickly released him. “Didn’t know you were back.”
“Yep. Just for two weeks. But now y’all are going to have to share the pizza I know Maya will be ordering.” He tugged her ponytail playfully before stepping back, the sting of it bringing her back into her right mind. Auden was about to be a junior in college. She was starting her senior year of high school. There would be no derailing. She was a kid to him.
“That meanspizzas—plural—must be ordered because you’re not good at sharing,” she said, trying to regain her composure and not look at his chest.
He smirked, a little sparkle in his eyes. “You’d be surprised. I have a roommate now. I’ve gotten good at sharing these days.”
Something in the way he said it made O’Neal feel like she was missing out on some private joke, but she returned his smirk as she stepped inside, and he shut the door behind her. “Guess you’re learningsomethingat college.”
“You mean at a lowly state school?” he said as they walked toward the kitchen, a playful note in his voice. “Where all the common heathens go?”
She frowned. “It’s not lowly. Bennette State is supposed to be a great school. My mom was taking classes there…when everything happened.”
He nodded, and she appreciated that he didn’t give her the standard sympathetic look people gave her whenever the topic of her mom came up but instead let the mention glide by.
“Yeah, well, it’s notWainwright or Wellington,”he said, pronouncing the men’s and women’s branches of the college with a faux British accent. “Which my parents regularly remind me of. Like I can help that Wellington didn’t have a swim team.”
