Chapter 3
Chapter Three
LEO
Bonfires at the lot were always the same.
Overdressed girls in white linen pretending they weren’t freezing. Jocks shotgunning beers like they’d just discovered frat culture. Trust fund kids trying to look edgy in scuffed Golden Goose sneakers that cost more than most people’s rent.
Fake laughs. Staged Snapchats. Somebody's Bluetooth speaker blasting music that was cool six weeks ago.
I leaned against the tailgate of my truck, drink in hand, watching it all like a show I’d seen too many times.
Tristan was holding court a few feet away, retelling the same story about getting kicked off a rented scooter in Capri last summer. Xavier was talking stocks with a girl who looked like she’d just stepped out of a Tory Burch catalog.
Me?
I was bored.
Another summer gone, half of it wasted shadowing my dad’s business partner in Milan—learning how to smile with my teeth while calculating leverage ratios.
The other half on Tristan’s yacht, anchored off the Hamptons, watching the same scene repeat in different coordinates.
Perfect makeup. Perfect size four. Nose jobs and filler before their senior portraits.
Every girl looked the same. Polished. Planned. Not a strand of hair out of place.
So when I saw her, it hit different.
At first, it was just motion—someone new slipping through the crowd like she hadn’t noticed the pecking order. Laughing softly at something her friend said, eyes half-lidded in the firelight.
Then the rest hit me in pieces.
Golden skin. Cutoffs that showed off the kind of legs that weren’t bought with Pilates classes. A loose white cami that slipped off one shoulder, catching firelight in the folds. Hair long and wind-tossed—not curled, not sprayed into submission, just… real.
Beautiful in that careless, didn’t-try-too-hard way.
Fresh.
Original.
A little messy. A little wild.
I straightened without meaning to.
“Who’s that?” I asked, nodding toward her.
Xavier followed my line of sight. “No clue. Not one of ours.”
Tristan raised an eyebrow. “She’s with that Price girl, I think. You know—scholarship kid. The one whose dad works at the polo barns.”
“Scholarship?” Xavier smirked. “That explains the vintage vibes.”
I didn’t respond. My eyes were still locked on her.
The rest of the party blurred—music, voices, flame. But she stood out like a secret. Like something sharp in a room full of soft edges.
“She’s new,” Tristan added, flicking his lighter. “Jade something. Transferred late. Real name’s not even Bryan. Rumor is she changed it.”
I didn’t care.
In fact, it made her more interesting.
A fake name? A clean slate? I could respect that.
All I knew was, she didn’t move like she wanted to be noticed—but I noticed her anyway. The way she tucked her hair behind her ear. The way she stood half in the shadows, like she was measuring the fire and deciding if it was worth stepping closer.
I didn’t hear the whispers. Didn’t care.
Scholarship girl.
Fresh meat.
Call her what you want.
She was the most alive thing Royal Oaks had seen in a long time.
And I wanted her.
Not in the slow, boring way my parents preferred—bloodlines and golf club weddings. No.
I wanted her like gravity.
Like chaos.
Like a fire I didn’t mind getting burned by.
And if I had to make the first move?
So be it.
Because that girl?
That girl didn’t belong in my world.
Which meant I was going to wreck hers.
I don’t know what made me do it.
The kiss.
It wasn’t planned. Hell, nothing about her was.
She was standing there on the edge of the firelight—flat seltzer in hand, white sneakers, hair catching the flames like gold thread. Like she didn’t belong. Like she didn’t want to. That was the first thing that caught my attention.
The second?
She looked at me like she wasn’t impressed.
That was new.
Everyone else at Royal Oaks either wanted something from me or wanted to be me. She just stood there like I was a mildly interesting footnote in her night.
I walked up without thinking. The world tilted a little, narrowed until it was just her and me and the sting of smoke in the air.
“You’re not from here,” I said.
Not a question. I already knew.
She blinked. “Wow. That obvious?”
I smirked. “Your shoes don’t have dirt on them yet.”
She looked down at them, then back up with a smile that wasn’t sweet. “Maybe I like being clean.”
“Not around here you don’t.”
She didn’t flinch. I liked that.
She looked right at me, head tilted like she was trying to decide if I was worth her time. “You always this charming or just when you're bored and slumming it with the commoners?”
My smirk deepened. Slumming it. That hit. “You think I’m bored?”
She gave me this look—half dare, half warning. “Not sure. You look like you’re trying really hard not to be.”
Damn. She was different.
She wasn’t laughing too loud. She wasn’t pulling at her shirt or angling her face for the best lighting. She wasn’t trying to impress me. Which is probably why I couldn’t stop staring.
I stepped closer. Couldn’t help it.
She didn’t flinch when I stepped in.
Didn’t shy away or shift her weight like she was nervous. She just looked up at me, eyes dark and daring in the firelight, like she was waiting to see if I’d blink first.
I liked that. Too much.
“You got a name?” I asked, my voice lower than I meant it to be. Didn’t care. She was too close for games now.
She tilted her head, a smirk playing on her lips. “Do you always ask before you pounce?”
I let my grin answer for me. “Only when I want to remember it.”
“Jade.”
Jade.
It fit her. Sharp. Beautiful. Dangerous if handled wrong.
“Jade,” I repeated, letting it settle on my tongue. “Sharp and pretty.”
She raised a brow. “Don’t forget dangerous.”
I stepped in just a little closer. Close enough that if she moved, I’d feel it. Close enough to see the fire dancing in the gold of her hair— the flecks of amber in her eyes. Close enough to smell something soft and citrusy under the smoke.
“See something you like?”
“You’re kinda mouthy for someone who just got here.”
“And you’re kinda full of yourself for someone who thinks Snap scores still matter.”
That made me grin.
And then I did it.
I kissed her.
No logic. No strategy. Just instinct and fire and something in me that wanted to feel alive for once.
It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t careful.
It was teeth, breath, heat—this flash of something wild and messy and real.
The party froze. I heard someone gasp. A phone camera click.
Didn’t care.
For one second, I let myself fall into it—into her—and everything went quiet.
Then I pulled back. Fast. Too fast.
“Welcome to Royal Oaks, new girl,” I said.
I turned before I could second guess it. Walked off like I hadn’t just detonated the night.
But my heart?
Still hammering.
And my mouth?
Still buzzing with the taste of her.
Everyone would talk. Everyone was already talking. I knew that.
But all I could think was—
Who the hell is she?
And why do I already know I’m going to ruin this?
I didn’t look back.
Didn’t need to.
I could feel her still standing there—breathless, stunned, probably questioning every life choice that brought her to that exact patch of sand. Good. She should.
“Damn,” Tristan called as I strolled back toward the truck, his voice rising above the hum of the fire and the bass from someone’s speaker. “That took, what—four minutes?”
“Three and change,” I said, lifting my cup like a trophy. “First to taste the fresh meat. Cheers.”
Xavier let out a low whistle. “You don’t waste time, do you?”
“Why should I?” I smirked, leaning back against the tailgate again like I hadn’t just kissed a stranger and thrown gasoline on the social hierarchy. “Scholarship girl shows up looking like that, what was I supposed to do—be polite?”
Tristan laughed, but it sounded too sharp. “You know you just pissed off half the lineup, right? Caroline’s going to explode.”
“Caroline always explodes,” I muttered. “It’s her default setting.”
Truth was, I could already feel the laser beam stares boring into the side of my face. Caroline and her clones in their cream knits and glossy lips, standing in a cluster by the coolers like they were plotting revenge in matching lip liner.
They were pissed.
Good.
Let them simmer.
I drained the rest of my drink and grabbed another from the ice bucket. The burn helped. Not the alcohol—my tolerance was too high for that. The distraction.
Because no matter how chill I played it, how cocky the smirk on my face was, my head was still stuck back at that fire, with her.
Jade.
I didn’t even know her last name.
Well—not the real one, anyway.
“Bryan,” Tristan had said earlier, but the way he’d said it? Like he didn’t believe it. Like it was something paper-thin and temporary.
Didn’t matter.
Scholarship girl. No legacy. No bloodline. Definitely not pre-approved by the Holt family trust.
But her mouth...
I rubbed the back of my neck, jaw tight. That kiss hadn’t been soft. Hadn’t been anything like the girls I usually wasted time with. There was no performance, no fake giggle, no waiting for a phone to be raised for content.
She’d just… let me.
And then stared like she wanted to slap me or kiss me again—maybe both.
And that? That did something dangerous to me.
I scanned the crowd, pretending I wasn’t looking for her.
A group of juniors passed, nodding and smiling too wide. I didn’t acknowledge them. A girl in a silk tank top pressed close, brushing her fingers along my arm like I hadn’t just made out with someone else in front of her entire social set.
“Leo,” she purred. I think her name was Sienna. Or something equally useless. “You’re in rare form tonight.”
I gave her a half-smile and didn’t move away. Let her play her game. Let the crowd see me lean into it like nothing had changed.
“Guess I was bored,” I said. “New girl fixed that.”
Her face faltered for a second before the smile came back, glossy and mean. “She won’t last.”
I shrugged. “Most don’t.”
But the second the words left my mouth, I hated them.
Because Jade?
She wasn’t like them.
There’d been something in her eyes when I kissed her—something raw, like she'd been through hell and still stood taller for it. She didn’t need anyone to save her. She hadn’t even looked at me like I was worth her time.
That kiss? That was her punching back.
I liked it way more than I should’ve.
And now every time someone tried to talk to me, I kept half my attention tuned to the dark edges of the party—wondering if she was still here, or if she’d left the second I walked away.
Coward that I am, I didn’t go find out.
I stayed with the noise. The fire. The easy girls and easier conversations.
I let Caroline give me a look like she was already drafting an apology text I’d never send.
I let Tristan tease me, Xavier smirk, and the crowd do what it always did—orbit around me like I was their gravity.
And I kept playing the part.
Cool. Unbothered. Untouchable.
But deep down?
I knew exactly what I’d done.
I’d just made her a target.
And if I knew Royal Oaks the way I did—they’d come for her.
Which meant if I didn’t want Jade Bryan to burn?
I was going to have to decide real fast whether I was going to be her biggest mistake… or her only defense.