Beauty and the Bad Boy (Beauties and Boys #1)

CHAPTER 1

When I was little, I’d wanted to be exactly like my older sister. She was pretty. Smart. Favored. There was a seven-year age gap between us, long enough that the answer to the question of “what do you want to be when you grow up?” had always been the same: my big sister, Destelle.

Now at seventeen, as I regarded myself in the bathroom mirror, I knew one thing for absolute certain. I was something my older sister never was.

“P-E-R-F-E-C-T,” I spelled aloud, lips tracing each letter. I brought my eyeshadow brush up, sweeping it across one closed eye while the other was laser-focused on my reflection. Multi-tasking, looking for any trace out of place. “I-M-M-A-C-U-L-A-T-E.”

Each letter manifested in my mind like it was made out of sand, rapidly dissolving into the next letter, and then the next.

The act of spelling the words out aloud, letting them fill the silence, soothed me, almost enough to chase away the tremble in my fingers.

A habit I’d had since I was little, when I’d still had to fight to impress my mother.

Now, it was the other parent who seemed to have forgotten I existed.

I’d been blending the brown eyeshadow for the past five minutes, taking my choppy smokey eye look and turning it bruise-like.

If this were Halloween makeup, it’d do wonders.

But for Senior Night at Alderton-Du Ponte, the most exclusive country club in Connecticut, on the biggest night of the year for high school graduates?

My eye makeup would be more than embarrassing—it’d be turned away at the door.

And I had to look my best. This night was big in more ways than one.

“I-D-E-A-L,” I spelled a little louder.

I’d been looking forward to Senior Night at Alderton-Du Ponte practically since the school year started.

The country club—one of the biggest in the state, the board of trustees would boast—dedicated a night to the upcoming graduates to brag about their achievements and college plans.

It was a night that would do many things, all at once.

First off, it would pull Dad from the pit he’d fallen into since mid-March, finally forcing him from the house after cooping himself up like a recluse. The last case he’d taken on as a Superior Court judge had shaken him. Badly. But he’d come out of hibernation for me.

Second, it would introduce me to the Pembletons—specifically, Dr. Pembleton, one of the advisors for Mullhound College.

Dad’s alma mater. Soon to be the campus I called home.

I already had a stellar connection with Dad, but getting an in with Dr. Pembleton?

My future as the top defense attorney in the state of Connecticut would be untouchable.

And third, a more recent addition to tonight’s itinerary, I’d meet Mr. ASMR, the owner of my favorite Study With Me YouTube channel. Unexpected, but I’d have enough time to squeeze him into my plan.

On that list, Dad was the only person I already knew, but the one I was most terrified of.

So many things to do. So many things to look perfect for.

P-E-R-F-E-C-T.

“It’s unbecoming of a woman to obsess about her reflection so much.”

The slightly sarcastic voice was one I knew as clearly as my own—the only other voice in the universe I swore I could hear in my head. “And it’s unbecoming of a boy to barge into his sister’s bedroom without knocking.”

I turned from the bathroom mirror to see Jamie, my twin brother, walking further into my bedroom.

He was already dressed for Senior Night, wearing a loose white Malstoni dress shirt tucked into a pair of dark brown slacks.

He even had a navy tie around his neck, tangled like a knot rather than looking proper. “The door was open.”

He was right, of course. My bedroom door and my attached bathroom door were both swung wide. “Not for your sarcasm, it wasn’t.”

Jamie tipped his dark head of messy waves as he sat on the edge of my bed, as if saying point to you.

I turned back to my reflection. Really, the only thing wrong was my eyeshadow.

I inherited my mom’s straight dark hair, so there wasn’t a frizzy strand in sight as it hung straight over my shoulders.

The dress Mom had picked out was a Malstoni, a dark green one that came to my knees with sleeves that capped delicately over my shoulders. Perfect for Alderton-Du Ponte.

Flawless, except for the shadow. I could just hear Mrs. Johnson in my ear now. “Why, did you get into a fight, dear? Haven’t you learned how to apply shadow properly yet? Shall I see if Lydia can give you some tips?”

Lydia. My archenemy who I’d rather die than be compared to.

I all but slammed the brush down on the sink counter and reached for my makeup remover wipes. I’d just start over. At this point, I’d probably have better luck.

“Spell inevitable,” Jamie said suddenly.

I replied without even thinking. “I-N-E-V-I-T-A-B-L-E. Inevitable.”

“Spell superintendent.”

“S-U-P-E-R—” I stopped, realizing what he was doing. “I’m fine, Jamie. I’m not nervous at all.”

“I don’t know why you lie to me. I can always tell.”

I turned to give him a little eye roll, but Jamie wasn’t even looking at me.

His head was tipped to focus on the book open in his lap, his glasses slipping down his nose.

I wasn’t surprised that he had a book in his hands—pigs would fly before James Brighton went anywhere bookless—but I hadn’t seen it in his hands when he came in.

But that was Jamie. He could sneak a paperback anywhere.

Something about the air felt lighter when Jamie and I were together. I called it a Twin Thing, but it was more so the peace of being in the presence of someone who knew you inside and out. Jamie could look at me for one second and see what I was feeling, and vice versa.

Which was how, after giving him my whole attention for one moment, I knew. “You’re nervous, too.”

Jamie lifted his head, peering at me over the rim of his glass.

He hadn’t always needed them; I liked to tease him that his eyesight got so bad because he read so much.

“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” he told me calmly.

“They’ll call us up on stage and announce to everyone what college we’re attending in the fall, so the parents can brag.

It’s fine. They’ll ply us with grape juice while they drink champagne, and we’ll be the ones helping them waddle out to the valet at the end of the night. It’ll be fine.”

Realistically, Jamie had nothing to be nervous about, not compared to me.

He was not bending over backwards to impress Dad, nor was he needing to make a pristine first impression to one of the biggest figureheads at his future college.

But still. He was nervous. “Who are you telling that to?” I asked him. “Me, or yourself?”

Jamie’s fingers picked at his page. “Will Daisy be there?”

Daisy Carmichael was my best friend, which, by default, meant that she was Jamie’s, too. “Of course. She said she’d drive separately, though.”

“But… NYU waitlisted her.”

“I know.” We’d both been there when she and Jamie had checked their application portals together.

“So she’ll stand there and listen while they praise everyone else?”

“You know Daisy doesn’t care about that sort of thing.

” It was a little funny. Daisy was the epitome of carefree in every single way except when it came to her family.

That was the reason she was taking a year off from school: to help watch her little siblings while her mom continued working her dream job in the city.

“Did you… tell her that you committed to Columbia?”

Jamie held perfectly still. “No.”

“Jamie.”

“I know.”

“You have to tell her first.” I lowered my eyeshadow brush, trying to catch his eye. “NYU was your guys’ dream. And, yeah, Columbia is amazing, but if you let Daisy find out through Mrs. Conan on a mic, she’ll never forgive you.”

Jamie didn’t reply to that. Instead, he flipped a page in his book, and if I hadn’t been watching closely, I might’ve missed his trembling fingers.

So that was why he was nervous. Because he was about to do A Very Bad Thing.

Swallowing a sigh, I returned to my reflection. The glitter on the inner corner would fix the atrocity, I decided.

I spelled it in my head. A-T-R-O-C-I-T-Y.

Somewhere in the house, a door slammed. Hard. Jamie jerked his head up while my stomach sank like a stone. In that moment, I knew. Before Mom even poked her head in my bedroom door, I knew.

“We about ready?” Mom asked a minute later as she breezed into my room.

She wore one of her favorite deep purple dresses with a little wrap around her shoulders, with her brown hair swathed up in the picture of elegance.

We looked so much alike that when I told people I had a twin, they sometimes thought it was Mom.

The only stark difference was that I loomed four inches above Mom; Jamie and I had gotten our height from Dad.

Her eyes found mine, and in the split second before she spoke, my mind filled to the brim with letters that jumbled together like alphabet soup. “Oh, my sweet Nellie. Look at you! The dress looks just as I imagined on you! And your makeup—gorgeous!”

My sister had resented the way Mom had cooed over her looks. Hated the dresses Mom laid out for her. She’d thrown it all back in my parents’ faces. I’m not a doll in a dollhouse you can parade around.

I was my mother’s perfect doll, one she could dress up and fuss over, and she loved me for it. “Everything looks all right?”

“More than all right.” Mom came deeper into my bathroom, reaching to smooth my hair off my shoulder. Her rose-scented perfume touched me before her fingers did, the smell of it making my stomach turn. I hated the scent of roses. “The prettiest girl at Alderton-Du Ponte, if I do say so myself.”

“Mom.” Jamie groaned from my bed. “Not you, too.”

“What! Everyone else says it. I can’t help that it’s true.” She winked at me in the mirror.