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"Els, you okay?"

As soon as I heard his voice another sob burst forth

"Ellie?" I could hear his iled to draw in a breath through my tears "Brian," my cries continued to interrupt me, "Fairmont… he-he’s a fifth year and he-he told everyone he had s-s-sex with ht" I stopped and huddled against a garden fence now that I was far enough away from the somewhat expensive prep school my absentee father paid for me to attend every year It was only a twenty minute walk from my parent’s home on St Bernard’s Crescent and I was more than tempted to cut school and hide in the house for the rest of the day

"That little shit," Braden hissed, his anger actually radiating down the phone and intoattoto you?"

"She fancies Brian I didn’t even… Braden I spoke, like, four words to hi and I said, "In another reality maybe""

"Was there an audience when you said that to him?"

"His friends were there, yeah," I sniffled

"So you turned the little perv down and he started a ruain "Okay, where are you just now?"

"I’o home I can’t take another three hours of this"

"Sweetheart, you can’t go home Braebank Prep doesn’t like its pupils to cut class Wait at the gates just now I’ll get this sorted out" I could tell by his tone that Brian Fairmont was about to learn you did notup and wiped at lad for once that Mum wouldn’t let me wear mascara, or any kind of makeup for that matter, until I turned fifteen Even then, she said I was allowed to wear mascara and concealer but no foundation, and definitely no lipstick until I was sixteen

My friends thought she eird

Waiting on Braden, I felt a little better knowing he was co brother was really just las Carh, he owned an estate agency and restaurants and a lot of property that he rented out to people He was loaded, and although he gave tiood enough apology for neglecting lect hurt A lot But I had Braden, who’d practically helped raise me with Muo, and since the moment he’d come into Mum’s life he’d made it clear he wanted to be las Carmichael ever would be

I sometimes wondered hoas possible me and Braden were spawned frolas’s kids Take Braden for instance After purposefully avoiding working for our father, a few years’ ago he suddenly decided he wanted to take a role in the Carmichael ‘empire’, which meant he worked his bloody arse off to make our father happy Not only did he work a lot, he rapped up in this girl he was dating

Analise She was an Australian student and they’d just started dating Braden seemed to really like her Still, he always found time for me Say, to rescue me from hideous situations like the one I was in

"Ellie," a faht my ear and I turned my head as a car door slammed My eyes widened as Adam Gerard Sutherland rounded the hood of his six year old Fiat-- a car Braden said was a stupid drain on Adah University and getting parked in the city was a nightmare

Adam Gerard Sutherland, by the as Braden’s best friend

I’d had a wee bit of a crush on him since I was ten so I was more than a little mortified that Braden had sent him to rescue me from this situation Not that I should have been surprised The two of them had traded that job back and forth since I was tiny

"Adaotten all the tears

The way his dark eyes studied me and his jaw clenched, it didn’t matter My eyes felt puffy and red and obviously were "Braden’s sorry He’s in a et out of," he said as he approached He wore a clean, wrinkle-free t-shirt and faded jeans Aday student Even his old banger of a car was clean and tidy inside "He phoned me I have a free afternoon Co, he pulled ainst his chest and held on tight, trying not to cry

"So where is this little shit?"

I pulled back from him, suddenly wary now that he was here and obviously furious "What are you going to do?"

"He’s fifteen?"

"Sixteen"

"Sixteen" He curled his lip in anger "I can’t hit him, but I can scare the absolute fuck out of him"

Braden and Adam cursed a lot, and they’d always cursed a lot in front of me Mum would kill them if she ever found out how much they cursed Luckily for thee of zero that you didn’t curse in front of Elodie Nichols, and I’d never repeated the words Braden and Adam used around me To be fair they limited their curse words to the basics--I’d heard orse at school Today in fact, and they’d been directed at ain