My Fault - Adrienette FF

The Hook Up

MARINETTE

Seeing him hit me like a ton of bricks after those four days when I'd managed to more or less forget what had happened at the races and had tried to avoid thinking about him—and when I did think of him, I felt a strange, unpleasant sensation in my stomach.

I knew I'd made him lose his prize possession and that they could have killed us that night, but it wasn't all my fault. If it hadn't been for Jake cheating on me, I'd never have gone; plus, that thug Raoul had tricked me, had made me think I was allowed to compete, and it was only once he saw me win that he'd taken advantage of the stupid rules to keep the fifteen thousand dollars and Adrien's car.

I thought it would take days, months, years until that little rich kid would forgive me and forget what I had done, but it turned out that despite all the things I'd imagined Adrien would say to me, he was there and the slate seemed to be wiped clean.

But making me pay some other way, that had to be a joke, right?

I didn't know what to think anymore, and I also didn't want to spend too long trying to figure out what Adrien Agreste would ask me to do to make up for this.

Jesus—two hundred thousand dollars. I was sure I'd never see that much money in my life. Only someone as rich as him could blow something like that off, and even if I knew that car was just a toy for him, one of many he could buy, I felt relieved and thankful that he was willing to forgive me.

I'd spent the past few days trying to get used to life in that house, full of remorse and all kinds of other mixed-up feelings. The worst part, the source of my sorrow, was knowing that my boyfriend had decided to cheat on me.

And now he was calling me and sending me thousands of messages trying to get me to forgive him and even get back together with him.

Every time my phone rang, my heart stopped, and when it started again, the beats hurt like a hammer blow. All that time I spent sunbathing reminded me of the things that tied me to my city, my home, and how that was all gone forever. That was what pained me most. My best friend had decided to cast aside our friendship for a guy, my guy, and he had the gall to ask me to forgive him.

Was he crazy?

There was no way I'd ever speak with either of them again, no way I'd ever be so stupid to throw myself at some guy's feet. Men had given me enough problems, and here I was, living with an attractive, dangerous guy with a parallel life that no one with half a brain would bother getting close to.

"You must be Adrien's worst nightmare," Alya said.

She took a pack of cigarettes out from between her breasts and lit one. I couldn't help but look around to see if Mom was nearby.

Alya was the one good thing I'd gotten out of that disastrous night. Her joy, her sense of humor, had made the past few days easier. She told me that she'd known Adrien since he was a boy. In fact, she was the person who knew him best.

According to her, my new stepbrother was an incorrigible man-whore who thought about nothing but parties, drinking, having fun, sex, and beating Raoul as many times as he had to for people to realize he was the real king of the night around here.

None of that surprised me, but there was one thing that did, even if she couldn't tell me much about it.

When Adrien was eighteen, he left his father's home for a while and was living at Nino's place in a rough part of town and getting into all kinds of trouble. That was where he'd met all those delinquents who lived a life of crime. Nino was one of the friends he held on to from that period.

I was shocked. My mother must have had no idea. If she did, she'd have told me. Now I understood how a guy from a rich family like Adrien had wound up in the kind of shady business I'd seen the two nights I'd hung out with him.