The English Billionaire

Chapter 9

Emma's POV

When we finally made it out of the school and into the parking lot, Grace and I pulled off to a huge tree that was by where both of our parents had parked.

"Oh my gosh!" Grace started, "he's even hotter in real life!"

I rolled my eyes.

"I'm so excited for the next time he'll speak, maybe he'll look at me and we'll make eye contact and it will be love at first sight," she continued ignoring my eye roll. "And then we'll get married and have three kids and live in his mansion for the rest of our happy, rich lives."

I rolled my eyes again. "If you looking at each other would be love at first sight wouldn't you already be making out or something?" I asked her, "I'm sure that you both looked at each other for a millisecond while we were in there."

"Way to crush my dreams, Emma," Grace gave me a small shove, shaking her head. Her face mirrored my grin though and we both stood there for a moment before our parents arrived from the thinning throng of people exiting the building. Saying a quick goodbye we both climbed into our cars for the drive home.

My ride home was filled with my parents discussing what Forest had said and what they thought of the tests.

_______________________________________

That  next Monday, school was actually almost normal. Everyone went to their classes, we got homework, hated school, ate lunch, got more homework and made it almost the whole way to study hall without hearing a thing about Forest and his billions of dollars and his cool cars and his pretty face. I even almost forgot about the eye-rolling boy.

That is until study hall.

It started out right, a high five with Reagan, a few witty words exchanged with Danny, I sat down and pulled out my math homework when Mrs. Brack stood up and broke the Forest free day.

"Okay, everyone, listen up!" She called and we all quieted down, looking over to her to see what she had to say. "I know that there was a few of you all selected to compete in this competition that Mr. Johnston has put together, so there has been a study test packet created by some of his associates to help those of you who have made it to help study for the test next week."

I bit back a groan. I had totally forgotten that the first test was next week!

"I've looked these over and along with the other teachers here we've decided to have a group that will meet during the mornings if you want help figuring out some of the answers for these study guides." Mrs. Brack continued as she began to pass out the study guides to those who and made it. She placed one on my desk and printed in neatly printed pen was my name and my 'scores' from the sign-up form that I had filled out. "So if you're interested please come any morning you can to get some help on these problems and questions."

I read through a few of the problems and my stomach clenched up. How could anyone my age pass a test like this? It was full of high school and college level problems, signs and words I had never seen before in my life.

This looked like something I could do later.

So I put it away, besides I had math homework to do-- math homework that I actually understood.

--

Grace's POV

When my study hall teacher passed the study guide for the test out I was in shock, well as much as a middle schooler could be. This looked just about impossible.

I could kiss my hopes of meeting Forest goodbye, I thought with a huff and wrote my name on the packet before stuffed it into my folder. I didn't even know where to start on it.

--

Forest's POV

The past few days had been constant movement, trying to see everyone in Kansas, traveling in planes and cars, getting barely any sleep and being constantly watched to see if I was going to mess up, to see what I was going to be like: my father or my mother. But now I was home and I could finally sit down and relax. I had locked myself in my room and told Chris to do the same. Twenty four hours later I have over fifty messages to respond to, thirty-nine unread emails, and my desk in peppered with different colored sticky notes of things that I have to get done ASAP, but I'm not tired and when I enter my office, I'm actually happy to see that I din't miss too much.

I'm hard at work, finishing up responding to all the emails I had missed, my answering machine also empty once more when Chris walked in. The black circles under his eyes were gone and he was actually looking more like my best friend from six months ago versus my best friend from last week.

"We sent out the study guides and I have the finalized list of the 100%-ers," Chris said, plopping down into a chair by my desk, holding a small stack of papers. The 100%-ers were the people who found the message in the sign up info sheets. They had been small in number but Chris and I were expecting great things from them, at least we hoped so.

"Thanks, Chris" I said with a small grin. "I see you slept quite a bit."

He let a small chuckle escape, "something like that." He responded. "I see you did too."

"Something like that." I flashed him a grin.

Chris shook his head then threw the stack of papers on my desk. "Have fun, my friend," he said, mirroring my grin then got up from the chair and walked out of my office, closing the door behind him.

I sighed, placing the papers to the side and turned back to my computer. I had so much work to do.