Page 115 of Bribed by the Billionaire Bad Boy

My jaw tightens. “Hey, now. There’s no goodbye. Not for us. I’m not moving. I’ll just be going to a different school.”

“No.” Her expression turns sour and repulsed. “Business school, Lex? Where the heck do you fit inbusiness school?”

I wish I could laugh, pretend it’s a joke, but I can’t even bring myself to act. “I know. It’s not like it’s my choice.”

“Why not?”

My eyes roll, because as if she doesn’t know. “My father’s paying for my tuition. This was the agreement. I’m not responsible like you. I’ve been the rich prat all my life. When I became an adult, my father told me I got two more years to do what I wanted, then the rest of my life belonged to him.”

“That’s garbage.”

“Don’t I know it?”

She takes a deep breath. “What’s stopping you from sayingscrew it? You’re brilliant, Lex. You don’t need his money to make tuition. I didn’t.”

Bitterness coats my tongue. “You think you can compare whatever I am capable of to you? No. You’re determined and focused. You see something, and you go for it. I get bored along the way, then a butterfly distracts me, and suddenly I’m looking into lepidoptera.”

“You say we’re alike.”

“Maybe I’m blissfully hopeful.” I can’t pull my eyes off her, even as spite laces my words. I know she doesn’t deserve this. I know I’m just angry. I already told her I wouldn’t let my anger at my father leak over into her, but somehow she’s now stuck facing it.

“I’m nothing like determined or focused, Lex.” She clutches the little neck of the ukulele, muting all the strings. “I don’t go for anything. I stay trapped in my own little corner, content to watch the world pass me by. The only thing that makes me look at all like what you’re saying isyou. You came into my life, and now I’m so many more things than I ever thought I was. But it’s allyou.”

I bend my leg, bracing my arm on it as I cover my mouth. “It’s really not.”

“Itis.” The glassy start of tears beads in her eyes, so she tilts her head back and stares at the ceiling. Her voice cracks when she speaks again. “You think I’m even here right now because I want to be?”

“No. You’re here right now because I asked you to be. Because my father handed me an invitation and said I had to ask you to come as some kind of test to see if you’d fit in my world once I grew into all this crap. But you know what?” I seethe, and my chest hurts. “You hate it here. How could I really force you to continue to be a part of something like this?”

Her eyes close, but no tears trace down her cheeks. “You hate it, too.”

“Yeah, but I was born into it. I don’t get a choice.”

“You always have a choice.” The fragility in that statement twists around my core. She trembles, and I would give anything to be brave enough to wade through the puddle of her dress and hug her right now. Her lips part, and she takes a shaking breath. “I don’t accept it. You’re Kenneth. You’re perfectly Kenneth. He didn’t accept it.”

“That’s just a stupid play.” I choke on my last word and freeze.

Her eyes open, slowly, and she fixes me with the glassy blue.

My head shakes, and I lift my hands. “No. I don’t mean. It’s just. That’s not reality. A happily ever after like that—it’s not— Itcan’t always—” I clutch a fist in her dress, as though I’m terrified she’ll disappear. “You once told me we were all just playing by a script God wrote, waiting for Him to take His bow. That’s all I mean. This is that. I can’t control the part I’ve been given to play.”

Her eyes pierce me, hard and unwavering. “I did say that. But then someone made me believe, just a little bit, that perhaps we could be the authors of our own stories, that God never intended for there to be any small actors in His script. You made me believe that. Even if it was just for a single moment at a time.” She turns her face away from me. “I guess I was wrong.”

“Calypso, please.”

“Say you won’t leave.”

I wince. “Calypso, I can’t just—”

“Say it.”

“Why is it okay to pressure me like this? I’ve been so careful with you. Why don’t I get the same courtesy?”

She laughs, the sound mutilated and half-gurgled. “You forced me into a play.”

“I propositioned. You could have denied the offer.”

Her eyes narrow. “Right. But I didn’t want to. You were just the incentive I needed to take the first step. So. Either say it, or tell me you want to leave. I don’t have money, so I can’t offer you a bribe. All I have is myself. So tell me that you either want to leave me all alone or that you don’t.”