Page 13 of Baby for My Billionaire Rival

I grip my fists at my side. “I know. I’ll be mad because I know he’s doing the right thing and that pisses me off.”

Jude smiles.

“What were you saying, Chase?” I ask my brother, perching my hands on my hips.

He looks down his nose at me. Oh no. He’s reading my mind in his brotherly way, I hate when he does this. “Is this about Jake Simmons?”

“Begone with you! Damn you all to hell and back!” I yelp and throw my hands in Chase’s direction like he’s a misbehaving dog.

Chase taps the wall and gives Jude a smile. One of those private smiles only people in love share. I’m so jealous I want to scream and at the same time I’m so happy for them. “Good luck,” he says before slinking off down the hallway.

Jude and I are quiet. She leans forward and begins working on the wall with her little paintbrush, painting specks of sand onto her mural. “You were saying? About Jake Simmons.”

I drop down onto an upside-down paint bucket. “Bite me.”

Over the past two months, I’ve tried as much as I can to avoid Jake Simmons. And I can tell he’s trying to do the same. We keep to ourselves in classes, taking the same seats every time, and avoid engaging in small talk or the same topics in class (unless Fig makes it impossible, which is something she is fond of doing).

And yet…

He haunts me. Each time his eyes land upon me, regardless if it’s an accident or on purpose, I feel himjudgingme. His loathe pours off him like a torrential storm.

If only I hadn’t treated him like he was the maintenance man. Then maybe he would have picked a different one of our classmates to be the object of his disdain for wealth because Lord knows I’m not the only one to flaunt it. I mean, look at Amy! Her last name is on the building for fuck’s sake!

But no. It’s me. Jake Simmons hatesme.

I’m sick of it. One mistake and I’ve become some pariah to him. I’d be glad if he was merely apathetic to me. But he hates me.

And I, in turn, have had to learn how to hate him.

I don’t want to. Don’t want to put myself at odds with the only person in our year whoactuallyworks for a living. And I mean actually. All the rest of us sit behind computers or take meetings. Jake is an all-American type. Works on his family’s farm, drives a pickup truck, and sweats out of necessity, not for fun like these CrossFit bros.

Unlike the rest of us, he’s confident enough in himself to just sit on his wealth and be himself. Not trying to show off, except for that one day he came dressed in a polo and slacks and looked so uncomfortable he might be forced to tear his own skin off.

“I respect him, Jude,” I say.

“I know you do, you don’t have to defend yourself to me,” she says, dabbing her brush into a little glop of gold on her palette.

I shake my head. “No, it’s not about the handyman thing, it’s about him as a person. Like he showed up and knew he’d be different and just said fuck it. I’m jealous.”

“Don’t be jealous of him.”

“Well, I am. I am jealous.” I sigh. “But more than that, I respect him. And I know he doesn’t respect me. And I don’tthink he ever will.” He doesn’t like me, doesn’t like my family’s business, doesn’t even like my nails. I’ve seen him glare at me while I’m drumming my fingers on my desk.

It’s the fact I’ll never earn his respect that hurts the most. That’s what makes me angry.

Jude glares at me playfully. “Don’t you think you’re obsessing a bit over this?”

“Obsessing? Me? Noo...”

My best friend laughs. “Are yousureabout that?”

“Jude, what are you getting at?”

She wipes off her hands and gets to her feet with a hefty sigh. “Well, if it bothers you so much that he’s bothered by you, then you ought to just say ‘fuck it’ and not give a fuck what he thinks. You can’t gain the respect of people committed to misunderstanding you.”

I glower. “I know you’re right.”

“But you’re going to keep obsessing, aren’t you?”

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