It was clear just looking at him.
He would need my help much earlier than any of us thought, and it didn’t matter if this wasn’t what I wanted. It was what I was destined for. Clermont Bay was laid before my feet, and I would be a fool if I didn’t realize the privilege my parents afforded me.
It didn’t mean that I still couldn’t hate it.
It didn’t mean that I couldn’t be thankful and dreadful at the exact same time.
Because I was.
I didn’t know how my dad did what he did every day. He was much stronger than I would ever be, than I could ever amount to.
I could see someone walking down the beach, and I tensed. There was rarely anyone on this beach as they all had private entrances from the homes that took up residence here. Old money. That’s what rested on this long boulevard. If you didn’t have it, you weren’t welcome.
Those weren’t my rules. It was just the way things worked. They had been that way forever.
I watched the figure get closer and closer, and my heart hammered in my chest. The Vos’s home was only a few houses away from ours, even though it felt like there were miles between us.
If I brought Frankie out here and that bastard was to walk by, I wouldn’t be able to control myself.
“Who is that?” I turned back to Frankie, and she was mostly blocked by Olly’s body. But I could still see a small jolt of terror that tore through her.
“I don’t know.” I pushed myself back toward the beach. “I’ll check it out.” I looked at Olly, silently telling him to watch out for her, and he gave me a look back that I knew meant he was offended that I felt the need to say anything.
He would protect her as wholly as I would. He wouldn’t let a thing happen to her.
I stepped out of the water and moved down the beach as I clenched and unclenched my hand. Water was dripping down me since I didn’t dare stop for a towel, but I didn’t care. The breeze was cold, but I welcomed it.
I stopped in my tracks as soon as I could see the figure enough to know it wasn’t a guy. Instead, there was a girl moseying down the beach with a book in her hand and her eyes on the water. She didn’t once look around her, not an ounce of self-preservation visible.
I watched Josie’s dark hair blow in the breeze, and she bent down to pick up something out of the sand. She hadn’t even spotted me coming closer to her, and somehow that fact pissed me off more than the thought of her brother.
This girl lived with two fucking devils and she still walked through the dark as if there was nothing to fear. It was the same way she looked at me. She looked at me like she didn’t care that I was the villain in her story, and I would take advantage of that fact. I would take advantage of every error she made.
I was only a few feet away from her when she finally looked my way. She jolted back as if I shocked her, and the fear that flushed her face in the moonlight gave me far more pleasure than it should have.
“What are you doing?” She stood, her fingers covered in sand, a dull seashell in her hand.
“What are you doing, Josie?” I pushed my hair out of my face and water trickled down my hand. She stared at me as if she was watching every fraction of movement it made. There was no shame in her gaze. She openly gaped at me as her eyes slid down my body.
She didn’t look like a girl who hated me.
Not at all.
She looked like a girl who was staring at something she couldn’t have.
Because no matter how gorgeous she was, she couldn’t have me. No matter what I led her to believe.
No matter how badly I wanted her.
She pulled her gaze away from me and looked down at the book in her hand. “I was just going for a walk.”
“In the middle of the night?”
Her fingers tightened around the paperback. “You’re out here in the middle of the night.”
“Not by myself.”
She looked behind me as if she hadn’t realized anyone else was out here, and I hated that her lack of self-preservation bothered me so much. She stepped back, looking back to where her house stood, and I should have let her go. I should have let her walk away and head back into her nest of vipers.
But there wasn’t a single part of me that wanted to let that happen.
I had her within my grasp. In the middle of the night, my prey was staring up at me like she wanted me to strike. It was as if she was begging me to make my next move.
I gripped the edge of her book and pulled it from her hand. She gasped and tried to snag it before I could get too far, but she didn’t stand a chance. She jumped at me, trying her hardest to get the book back, but I held it higher, completely out of her reach.
“Stop, Beck.” Her chest pressed into mine as she tried to fight against me.
“The Duke that Saved Me.” I read the title of the book and couldn’t stop laughing as I looked at the cover. “Josephine, you little scandalous thing.”
The cover was tattered, and it was clear that the book had been read time and time again.
“I swear to God, Beck. Give it to me right now.”
I didn’t listen to her. I flipped open the book and read a line aloud. “Her hands trembled as she fumbled with his buttons. Not only was he her first, but he was also her only.”
Her elbow smashed into my ribs, and I groaned as I leaned forward, knocking myself farther into her. Her cheeks were stained red as she snatched the book out of my hand.
“I didn’t realize you were such a dirty girl.”
She huffed and tried to push away from me, but I pulled her closer. I may have been her enemy, but that didn’t mean I didn’t like the feel of her against me. I could afford a few moments of her skin against mine.
She was so warm and soft, and even though she pretended like being next to me was the absolute last place she wanted to be, she was pliable under my hands.
“This was my mother’s book.” She said it like it was somehow supposed to make a difference to me.
“Your mom is a dirty girl too?” I licked my lips, but she froze. Everything that was soft about her moments before had now gone hard.
“Don’t talk about my mom.” She pushed against my chest, and I let her. Even though it was the last thing I wanted. I stumbled back a couple inches from the force of her hands.
“She was with your dad, right? She can’t be all that innocent.” Because anyone who was a Vos was evil to me.
“Well, she’s dead.” Her voice shook, as did her hands.
I stepped back and tried to think of what to say. I didn’t know. I had not a single clue. If I had, I would have never said what I had just said. I may have been cruel, but I wasn’t that cruel. I wasn’t so fucked up that I would tease her about her dead mother.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” When everyone had been talking about Joseph Vos’s daughter that had arrived in town, they said they thought she had been sent to her father because of her behavior. She was his black sheep.
His fucking blemish on his otherwise perfect life.
I didn’t know the truth.
“Why would you know that?” She took two steps back, and her face had morphed from sadness into anger. “It’s none of your business.”
She had a point, but people in Clermont Bay made a life out of knowing everyone else’s business. Normally, I would have known everything about her by now, but it seems Joseph Vos was keeping more than one secret.