Page 549 of Filthy Elites

“Boyfriend, girlfriend?” she guesses.

“Neither. Just some asshole who need to be taught a lesson.”

Her grin shows all her pearly white teeth. “Ah. The best kind of fun.”

Her face is flawless as usual—mine, but fairer, firmer, with perfectly smooth skin, and a dusting of freckles on her nose. I always pass for her little sister, mostly because she doesn’t look a day over twenty-five.

“What makes you think I’m having fun?”

She shrugs. “Last year, you were all gloom and doom, barely saying a word. Now, you’re annoyed. That’s more like you. That temper of yours comes from my mother, you know. You’re more Irish than I ever was.”

I don’t know much about her parents. They died when she was young, and her grandparents kicked her out the moment she decided to keep me, so my extended family has never been relevant to me. “What color for your hands?”

“Red, I think.” Her sculpted eyebrows knit. “Is that my lipstick?”

“It was.” I stick my tongue out.

“Well, it suits you. I like the change.” Her hand cups my chin, and she brings her lips to my forehead.

I paint her nails blood red, enjoying the comfortable silence until she asks, “You’re doing okay here, right?”

“Yeah. The school’s better than Thorn Falls West, for sure. I figured, if I have decent grades, MIT might spare me a glance.” I tell her about the science fair, and my frustration about finding a project months after anyone else in the club while her nails dry under her UV lamp.

Audrey’s completely relaxed. “You’ll find something, sweet. You always do.”

She inspects her flawless manicure, and glances at her pretty, diamond-studded rose gold watch.

“That’s new,” I say.

“Hm? Oh! Yeah.” She hands me her wrist so I can observe it.

“He must like you very much.” I don’t want to say Mr. Archer’s name.

She beams. “He does. I have ten minutes, so I can do your nails, then he and I are attending an event tonight. I left lasagna and a salad in the fridge. Don’t wait up for me, all right?”

Like I ever do.

ChapterTen

I’ve never likedthe way those people observe me. Like they’re trying to decide what I’m made of. Like I have something to prove.

I’m not blind. I know how things work in Thorn Falls. The Thorns might have founded this town a hundred years back, buttheyare the ones running it.

The Heritage golf club popped up when my father was about my age, not so long ago, and right after, a bunch of newcomers started to buy properties in Thorn Falls—the riverside, of course. My grandfather, Leon Archer, and his friend Gallad Thorn, owned the majority of the land and made their fortunes selling it to a bunch of big players. The Hunts, the Stones, the Crosses, the Montgomerys, the Fullers, the Cushmans, the Cornwells…old families from New York, mostly. They can trace their ancestry as far as we Archers, but at the time, they had much, much more money.

Thanks to the cash their purchases infused into our finances, my grandfather built a property empire.

There’s something strange about them. I’m close enough to Camden, Rhys and Roman to see that. We might be friends, but I’m the odd one in the quartet, the one at the periphery of things. Sometimes, they speak in low voices and stop altogether when I enter the room.

I don’t doubt the three of them have my back, on and off the football field, but what they have is more. They’d bury a body for each other. Mine, if necessary.

Yet whenever I encounter their parents, they watch, always assessing, judging.

I intended to just drop Jade off at her house, but her brother, Aryan Montgomery, spots me from the poolside, where he’s downing shots with his college friends, and waves me over. It’s unseasonably warm, and they’re making the most of it.

I should have begged off. I would have, if not for the distinct memory of Erica’s expression when she saw me leaving with Jade. That’ll teach her after yesterday.

The game we play is utter torture, but fuck if I can stop myself. She’s right, I want her more than I want my next breath. I don’t even want to fuck her. I want toownher. It’s sick. She’s a carbon copy of her whore of a mother, my father’s mistress. I’ve heard them fuck almost every night, although my father’s room was in another wing of the property. I begged mom to let me move into the pool house last spring just to escape them. And now, I jack off to thoughts of the daughter. Talk about incestuous.

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