Valentine (A Standalone Novel) (Bad Boy Romance Book)

VALENTINE

By
Claire Adams

This
book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are
products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not
to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual
events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright
© 2015 Claire Adams

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Chapter
1

Val

"I really don't see what the big deal
is." I tugged my scarf tighter around my neck and glanced around the table
at my friends. "Just because all the women in my family have led the Delta
Gammas through the generations doesn't mean that I have to. I don't even fit
into the group. But does anyone give a shit? Nope."

Lucinda huffed and ran her hand over her
dark hair. "Your mom and sister are a different breed of human altogether,
Val. You know that. Don't go getting all stressed out again just because
elections are coming up at the end of the spring."

Katelyn sat to my left, playing with her
straw and dipping in and out in what looked like a day dream state, but
something about the conversation seemed to pull her from her thoughts. She
glanced up and lifted her eyebrow at me, her blue eyes filled with concern.

"You don't really think Carolyn is
going to get the presidency again, right? She's been nothing less than
horrible." Katelyn was the only one in my group of friends that lived in
the Gamma house with me. The rest of them had sense in their head.

My fourth and favorite gal pal in the
group spoke up as she ran a French fry through the mound of ketchup on her
plate. "I think you should run, Val. You're the most logical girl in the
house."

"Hey!" Katelyn huffed and
swatted playfully at Amy. "I'm logical. Sort of."

I snorted and glanced around the fast food
restaurant we sat in. The place was relatively empty, which wasn't surprising
at all. It was three degrees below freezing and getting out of the house was a
hazard to our health, but being cooped up any longer with Carolyn and her
lackeys meant I was going to crack.

"You guys ready for classes starting
back tomorrow?" Lucinda turned as the door opened behind us and freezing
cold air blew in. "Damn. Close that door!"

Amy chuckled and shook her head. "No,
I'm not looking forward to it at all. I have my senior level physics class, and
from what I heard, it's going to be the death of me."

"Please. You're the smartest person I
know." I got up and gathered my stuff before walking to the trash can and
letting out a long breath. The situation with Carolyn wasn't something I was
honestly willing to discuss with anyone. The girl had been dead set on being a
thorn in my side the entire time I had been at the University of Minnesota, and
she was damn good at keeping her promises.

Truth be told, I didn't want the
leadership role with the Gammas. Not in the slightest. They were the rich kids,
the elite, and though my family had money, I wasn't interested in flaunting it.
Ever.

"What's the plan for today?"
Lucinda walked up beside me and worked to get something out of her teeth.

I gave her a look and buttoned up my heavy
coat before walking back toward the table and grabbing my backpack. "I'm
headed to the library. I have a paper due when I walk into my business law
class tomorrow."

"What? That's messed up."
Katelyn tossed her stuff in the trashcan and turned to give me a sympathetic
look. "You want us to come with you?"

"No, and you wouldn't even if I did want
you there." I chuckled and pulled my phone from my back pocket as it
buzzed. My mother. "I gotta take this. The world might be ending."

"Your mom can't find her favorite
brand of shoes at the mall?" Lucinda poked at me and shook her head.
"No clue how you ended up odd man out within your family, but I'm sure
glad you did."

"Why is that?" I opened the door
and shuddered as the chill of winter wrapped around me.

"Because we wouldn't be friends
otherwise." She laughed.

I waved to my friends and answered the
phone as my stomach tightened. There was no one in the world I dreaded talking
to as much as I did my mother. I wasn't good enough, smart enough, or working
nearly hard enough for her. This coming from a woman who hadn't worked a day in
her life and looked like a Barbie doll, thanks to a group of surgeons who got
paid quite well to keep her that way.

"Mom. What's going on?" I kept
my tone even. I might not be my mother's favorite, but to disrespect her would
bring more harm than good, and besides, my father raised me to be a better
person than that.

"Valentine, why didn't you tell me
that you weren't planning on running for the Presidency of Gamma? You're the
Vice President now. That I have to hear these things from Marilyn Jacobs is
upsetting. You know she's just looking for a reason to make me feel inadequate.
Why do you keep giving her one?" My mother's voice was tight and filled
with tension.

I let out a slow breath, praying like hell
that she wouldn't hear me and-

"Don't you sigh at
me.
This is serious business." She continued to grumble as I jogged toward the
library. Huge piles of snow lined the narrow path that someone had taken the
courtesy to create earlier that morning. My mother was forever concerned about
Marilyn Jacobs, much like I was concerned with the dealings of her bitchy
daughter, Carolyn. Funny how some things just moved from generation to
generation – whether we wanted them or not.

"Mom, I'm not sighing at you. I'm
jogging to the library. It's freezing out here. Give me a minute and I'll talk
about this with you. I can't breathe right now." I pulled the phone from
my ear as she started up again.

Why she couldn't just let me be was beyond
me. My older sister Allison wasn't badgered her whole life; but then again, she
had been the measure of success by which all my failures were compared and left
wanting.

I opened the door and walked in as a group
of giggling girls walked out. Their excitement labeled them as freshman, and I
was almost jealous. The thought of graduating in a year and a half left my
insides turning to ice. To say I was scared was a mild understatement. I wasn't
capable of pulling my weight in high school and now college. Real life was
going to eat me alive.

My mother's voice rose up from the phone
as I lifted it to my ear and forced myself to sound much more pleasant than I
felt.

"Sorry, Mom. That was a long jog. I'm
in the library. I have a paper due for my business law class tomorrow," I
whispered as loudly as I could without grabbing unwanted attention from the people
working at the checkout desk.

"You're out of breath. Have you been
going to the gym? Your father and I don't pay for you to go to the gym just to
spend our money on the hope that you'll stay in shape, Valentine."

I found an empty table near the back of
the library and quietly sat my stuff down before dropping into one of the
chairs. The last thing I needed that morning was to have my mother remind me
that if I didn't stay in shape, I wouldn't be a prime candidate for a man.

"You know that if you let yourself
continue to gain weight, you'll end up alone and living with me and your
father." She let out a frustrated sound, and I leaned back in my chair,
unwilling to give her fuel for the forest fire she was creating. "Start
using the gym membership or we'll cancel it."

"It's part of the campus fees, Mom.
You can't cancel it, and I'm not getting fat." I ran my hand through my
dark brown hair and glanced around to make sure I wasn't being disruptive.
"Besides, basketball is starting back up, and I've been on the courts,
which I assure you is a great workout."

"Basketball." She huffed loudly.
"That's a boy's sport, Valentine. You need to stop spending your time on
things that aren't going to be part of growing your future."

"Like the sorority that you made me
join?" I closed my eyes and dropped my head in failure. I hadn't meant to
bring it up. It was like putting a target on my head and handing my mother a
loaded gun.

"That sorority, young lady, has the
ability to help you get any job or any man that you want. It's a powerful group
of women, and you not even trying for the leadership role, which is rightly
yours, is disturbing." She was running out of breath, which means the
drama was just starting. "What's even worse is that you let Marylyn’s
daughter take the presidency. You have no clue of how incredibly disappointed
and embarrassed I am."

"I'll try harder, Mom. Sit down and
don't get upset over this." I opened my bag and tried to ignore the
sickness swirling deep inside my stomach. I loved her, I did, but she was a
monster most days of the week – and that was when she was in a relatively good
mood.

"How do you know I'm not
sitting?" she barked into the phone.

"I can hear you pacing. You know your
blood pres-"

"I'm not interested in having a
pow-wow with my child over my blood pressure. What I am interested in doing is
hearing that you're going to stop wasting all of the opportunities that your
father and I are creating for you and that you're going to actually do
something with yourself." She was yelling by this point, and I was over
it.

"Yep. I am. I'll call you later, Mom.
I love you to the moon and back." I dropped the call as tears filled my
eyes. I'd promised myself a million times that I wasn't going to cry another
tear over her disapproval of me. It wasn't going to change or get better, and
I'd quit trying to please her after my first year of coming to college. The
fact that I was still in the sorority house pleaded the opposite of that, but
it was a small offering of peace toward her. That's all I had left in me.

A text came through from Katelyn that the
Sigma Chis were having a “last night of winter break” party later that night. I
told her I would go, but only if there was beer and hot guys.

Hot guys. Yeah right. I barely wanted to
see the good-looking guy that I had been dating for the last six months, much
less anyone new. Paul Wright was the all-American heartthrob on campus, and
where I'd promised myself I wouldn't get involved too seriously with anyone
during my college years, his blond hair and blue eyes left my heart fluttering
too often to refuse.

Me
and every other girl on campus.

We'd been together for six months, and while
the relationship was good, it wasn't anything near great. He was too much like
my mother, and the fact that she approved of him left me feeling like I was
almost out of my league.

I stiffened as the sound of his voice lifted
up from the row of books to my left, surprising me a little.