Page 70 of Backlash

“You know he’ll go after her,” Luca adds quietly.

“Yeah,” I say in a clipped tone.

“Watch your back, brother.”

“I always do.”

What have I gotten her into? Valmont isn’t big enough for all of us. Not if my past mistakes are going to move to town with me.

“And, Sterling, better watch hers, too,” he says before hanging up.

I thought Valmont needed a reckoning, but now that one is on its way, I’m wondering not only if I made a mistake coming back but who’s going to pay or it?

19

Adair

The Past

“I’m going to sleep with Sterling.”

Poppy’s Audi swerves into the next lane, and she quickly jerks it back to the right side of the road, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a mini-van.

I instantly regret my decision to tell her while she’s driving.

“I thought you already did,” Kai says from the backseat.

“What? Of course she hasn’t!” Poppy cries in a shrill voice, turning off the radio. She throws an exasperated look over her shoulder at him.

“Eyes on the road!” I grab the steering wheel and straighten it until her focus has returned.

“We would know if she slept with him. She would tell us,” Poppy lectures him. “It’s part of the rules.”

“There are rules?” I ask.

“Yes, and they’re so ingrained that you didn’t even know it. You just knew you needed to tell us!” Poppy claps and then grabs the wheel. “Oops! Sorry.”

We pause the discussion until we reach safety, but the moment our feet are on solid ground, they pepper me with questions.

“When?” Poppy asks.

“Where?”

“Friday, and I don’t know.” I wring my hands together. That’s the part that’s been weighing on my mind. Part of me wishes we hadn’t been interrupted that night at the Eaton. Then it would already be behind me. Sterling has been focused on his finals since Francie left, leaving little time for romantic interludes. “I told him that I’d sleep with him if he got an A on his Econ final.”

“You incentivized your virginity?” I can tell Poppy doesn’t approve.

“Look, I know I want to lose it to Sterling, so I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone.”

“Romantic,” Kai says with a chuckle.

“Actually, I think it will be.” I bite my lip, wishing they could see in him what I do. Unfortunately, the pair has been privy to enough bad behavior on his part to make that harder than I’d like. I take a deep breath and drop the bigger bombshell. “I think I’m in love with him.”

I know it, actually.

Poppy spins and grabs my hands. “Oh my god, did he say it?”

It doesn’t matter if she likes him or not. She knows that a moment like that is bigger than her personal objections. Her face falls when I shake my head.