Wicked Elites: A Reverse Harem College Bully Romance (Bully Boys of Brittas Academy Book 1) Read online

  Wicked Elites

  Bully Boys of Brittas Academy Book 1

  Sofia Daniel

  Copyright © 2019 by Sofia Daniel.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  www.SofiaDaniel.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  From Sofia Daniel

  Chapter 1

  Since Mom’s breast cancer diagnosis, I’d had nightmares of watching her linger away in a hospice, dying a slow, painful death. Dad would sit by her bed with Ashley, providing silent and stoic support. That’s how I pictured Mom’s death.

  But the car accident and the cremation had proven me wrong. In one terrible evening, I’d lost them both. And now I sat in the office of Selby Solicitors, straining to hear the reading of Mom’s will over Ashley’s wailing.

  “Why did they have to die?” Ashley hiccuped.

  “The life insurance policy only covered the mortgage amount for the house,” said the solicitor. “Which leaves you in a precarious position.”

  I leaned forward. “If we can pay off the mortgage, isn’t that good?”

  Mr. Selby drew back and sighed. “What about the costs of maintaining the house? Your living expenses? There’s little that social services will offer two seventeen-year-old girls.”

  Uncle Trevor clasped his hands. “Are you suggesting they sell the house?”

  “That’s something you’ll have to decide amongst yourselves,” he replied in a tone that said yes.

  “S-sell it,” said Ashley. “We can use the money for a statue.”

  I ran my fingers through my mahogany hair. “And where would we live?”

  Aunt Hortense stiffened in that way that meant she was unwilling to take on two grieving teenagers.

  Uncle Trevor rubbed the back of his neck. “Our place is already cramped with three kids, and with Hortense expecting… I’m sorry, girls.”

  A rush of determination, sharp as an ax, cut through my stupor of numbness and grief. Mom and Dad might be gone, but it didn’t mean we had to get rid of the house. The four of us had worked together renovating the cottage, and fond memories were etched into those walls. I couldn’t face erasing their existence.

  “We’re not selling.” I stood. “Thank you, Mr. Selby. Was there anything else?”

  The solicitor shook his head. “I’ll have the title deeds transferred to your names. You should hear from the Inland Revenue in time with a calculation of the inheritance tax.”

  “Inheritance ta—” I shook my head. It was too much. We’d deal with the tax bill when it arrived. Right now, I just wanted to go home.

  “Ashley.” Aunt Hortense pulled herself to her feet in the exaggerated way heavily pregnant women moved. She hooked her hand under my sister’s arm. “Come along.”

  Ashley allowed Aunt Hortense to pull her up, and she leaned hard on the smaller woman. The slight shuffle in her gait indicated my twin sister had downed a few drinks to bolster herself for the reading of the will. I rubbed my temples. She was taking Mom and Dad’s death harder than everyone.

  “Willow.” Uncle Trevor watched them leave. As soon as the door clicked shut, he murmured, “Perhaps now would be a good time to tell your sister why your Mom and Dad were driving late on the night of the crash.”

  My stomach dropped. “What?”

  “It might be the catalyst she needs to stop drinking and to better herself.”

  “Or it might be the catalyst to a complete breakdown,” I replied. “Look, I know my twin. She’d be devastated if she knew Mom and Dad had gotten themselves killed going out to look for her.”

  As I stood, a wave of grief crashed through my gut, knocking me back into my seat.

  “Sorry.” He grabbed my arm. “Keeping that secret might be more of a burden than you can imagine.”

  “Right now, my biggest burden is keeping a roof over our heads.”

  “There is something that might give you the funds you need to maintain the house,” he said. “And you’d also get to study.”

  “A job at a school?”

  “Not exactly.” Uncle Trevor stood. “Your mother told me about a letter they received at the end of the summer term from a prestigious academy on the Elite Register.”

  I furrowed my brows and pulled myself to my feet. The Elite Register was an examination body that assessed the quality of schools. It listed only the finest of establishments, usually those that charged a fortune for tuition fees.

  “They wanted Dad to teach?” I asked.

  “Actually, it was about you.” Uncle Trevor placed a steadying hand under my elbow and walked us to the door. “The Brittas Academy offered a bursary for you to enroll.”

  My feet froze. “Why would a school on the Elite Register even know about me?”

  “Your principal recommended you to Mrs. Benazir, the academy’s headmistress.”

  My stomach sank. I did okay at Cummersdale Comprehensive. Better than okay, but I had few friends there as most people preferred Ashley, my less academic, prettier, and thinner twin. A place at an elite-registered academy would give me somewhere I could belong. Mom and Dad had to know this. I’d spoken to them at length about my isolation.

  “T-they refused my place?”

  “It was just after your mother got her breast cancer diagnosis, and they wanted the family to stay together.” He placed a comforting arm around my shoulder and guided me out of the door into the empty reception area.

  I glanced beyond the glass storefront for signs of Ashley and Aunt Hortense but couldn’t see them.

  “If they thought it would help, they would have passed the offer onto you, but you were already doing so well without an elite education.”

  I nodded. Now that Mom and Dad were gone, I appreciated their decision. It would have killed me to have missed even a week of their lives.

  Uncle Trevor drove through Carlisle town center and down the highway that led to the Lake District, a region of mountains and lakes where Mom had always wanted her ashes scattered. I didn’t bother to ask why he and Aunt Hortense had separated Ashley and me.

  Ever since the night Mom and Dad died, I’d felt differently about Ashley’s lifestyle. At first, she was the exciting sister. The one who went to parties, had older boyfriends, and had a crowd of lively friends. A stark contrast to me and my books.

  But Mom and Dad had seen her differently. They’d wanted her to be more like me, but after we had moved out of London, Ashley had rebelled.

  I blew out a long breath. The night they had died, Ashley had missed a family dinner to go to an outdoor rave. Mom had found the flyer in her room and gotten Dad to drive her through the mountainside roads to find Ashley.

  But a drunk driver had knocked them off the road. Then the car had tu
mbled down the slope into one of the lakes. According to the coroner, it had been an instant, painless death. The verdict had given me no reassurance.

  A lump formed in my throat. Mom and Dad were gone… just because Ashley had decided to skip out on dinner to party.

  “I hope you don’t mind.” Uncle’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. “I called Mrs. Benazir, and she would like to see you.”

  Clearing the lump in my throat, I croaked, “When?”

  “In the afternoon.”

  I gazed out at the distant mountains. “That explains why you’re driving me toward the Lake District.”

  “And why Hortense brought her own car.”

  The Brittas Academy looked like the five-star country house hotel we once visited on a family vacation and was set within hundreds of acres of woodland. The central part of the building stood two stories high, with east and west wing towers that stretched four stories.

  If grief hadn’t encased my heart in numbness, I might have gasped at the tall, arched windows or at the grand entrance, but I just stared ahead and wondered if the headmistress would offer me enough of a bursary to afford to keep the house.

  “This place looks more promising than Cummersdale Comprehensive.” Uncle’s voice was upbeat, as though he was trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing by sending me away. “What do you think?”

  “It’s nice. How many stars does the academy have?”

  “The Elite Register awarded them five and a special commendation. It’s graded above Eaton and all the other historical schools. The waiting list is a thousand-students long.”

  “You’ve done your homework.”

  Uncle coughed. “Not really. As a teacher, I have to know about these things.”

  “Oh.”

  Students strolled in and out of the main building, clad in bottle-green blazers with matching pants or skirts, a peculiar color for somewhere supposedly so exclusive.

  As Uncle Trevor parked the car in a small victor’s lot outside the main building, he said, “Remember this, Willow. They’re going to need you a lot more than you’ll need them. Don’t accept Mrs. Benazir’s offer until you’ve asked for everything you could possibly want.”

  I shrugged. “Why would the academy offer me money when Cummersdale Comp doesn’t give me anything to study. Shouldn’t I be paying them?”

  “I’ll take the lead.” He opened the car door, and we walked across the courtyard, up a set of stone stairs and through oak double doors.

  The scent of beeswax polished engulfed my senses, and a vast hallway of gleaming, herringbone floors stretched toward a grand staircase with wooden banisters that reminded me of the Titanic movie. Wood panels covered the walls, with the occasional carved sculpture, but there were no paintings or artwork normally expected of old buildings.

  I wondered if that was to stop the students from lingering in the hallways between classes.

  “Her office is on the left,” said Uncle Trevor.

  Mrs. Benazir was a short, plump woman with olive skin and salt-and-pepper hair. From her name being the same as a Pakistani prime minister from the eighties, I was guessing she was also from Pakistan.

  The headmistress wore the kind of academic robes people wore during graduations, but hers were red with blue satin instead of black. I chewed my lip. Shouldn’t someone wearing such elaborate robes have a title like Doctor or Professor?

  She leaned across the table, clasped Uncle’s hand, then placed another hand on top. It was the kind of warm, overfamiliar greeting nobody used in this part of England. Uncle Trevor stared down at their joined hands.

  “Thank you, Mr. Redbush, for bringing your niece.” She turned to me, compassion shining in her dark eyes. “And Willow, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  My throat thickened, and I pressed my lips together. No matter how many times people said that to me—the policemen who visited the house to tell me about the accident, the people at the cremation house, Mr. Selby the solicitor, and countless others—I had no idea how to respond. None of these people had known Mom and Dad. How could they possibly be sorry about the death of a stranger?

  Mrs. Benazir let go of Uncle’s hands and stared into my eyes, as though expecting a response.

  Knots formed in my stomach, and I murmured, “Thank you.”

  She gestured for us to sit, and a breath of relief whooshed out of my lungs.

  “Mr. Brunswick from Cummersdale Comprehensive forwarded me your academic record,” said the headmistress. “It’s impressive, considering the amount of time you’ve spent in a state school.”

  She tapped her French-manicured nails on her oak desk. “I wrote to your parents at the end of the last academic year, offering you a scholarship at the Brittas Academy. Did they ever tell you about it?”

  I shook my head.

  “It was very generous.” She clasped her hands and beamed. “A bursary of twelve thousand pounds, all tuition fees waived, and free equipment and textbooks. It’s more money than a seventeen-year-old could possibly spend.”

  My throat dried. Ordinarily, twelve grand was a fortune, but I had the house and no income to pay for things like electricity bills or buildings and contents insurance. Even if I took up her offer, I needed double that amount for maintenance and to save a little extra in case of emergencies.

  Remembering what Uncle had said—the academy needed me more than I needed them—I shook my head.

  Her brows drew together. “Our current bursary is generous enough—”

  “Willow isn’t the average A-star student.” Uncle leaned forward. “And she’s now solely responsible for maintaining a house.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  My heart skittered in my chest. A place at this academy would change my life for the better, but I wouldn’t take it if it meant getting rid of Mom and Dad’s home. “I’ve just inherited a house, and I have an upcoming inheritance tax bill. Twelve thousand a year won’t be enough.”

  She pursed her lips. “How else would a girl your age earn money except by wasting her talents in a minimum-wage retail establishment?”

  “I have twelve A-star GCSEs. The university can employ me as a lab assistant or I can apprentice with a large company,” I bluffed. “That would pay enough to cover all my costs, and I can study for my A-levels in the evenings.”

  Mrs. Benazir’s eyes narrowed. “Eighteen thousand. Tax-free.”

  “Twenty four,” said Uncle.

  “Eighteen thousand,” she repeated. “If you maintain an average score of ninety percent, I’ll pay a bonus of six-thousand at the end of the academic year.”

  Uncle turned to me with his brows raised in a what-do-you-think gesture.

  I chewed my lip. Ashley was barely coping with Mom and Dad’s deaths, and Mom had explicitly asked me to take care of Ashley if the breast cancer metastasized. Neither of them would approve of me going to a fancy boarding school while Ashley remained penniless in that house on her own.

  “One more thing,” I said. “My twin sister—”

  “Wonderful.” Mrs. Benazir clapped her hands together and grinned. “If she’s anything like you, I can extend the offer to her.”

  “Her grades aren’t as high.”

  That was an understatement, but I had a feeling that telling the headmistress about Ashley’s drinking and partying would lead to an abrupt refusal.

  “Miss Evergreen, this is an academic institution. Everyone passing through these gates has a vested interest in joining Oxbridge or Ivy League universities. Having an individual like your sister will lower our grade averages and subsequently, our standing.”

  “Ninety-five,” I blurted.

  “Willow,” Uncle hissed.

  “Pardon?” asked Mrs. Benazir.

  My heart accelerated. Leaving Ashley behind wasn’t an option. And neither was leaving here without an offer. “If you let her in, I’ll maintain an average of ninety-five percent.”

  Her brows rose. “Is your sister capable of maintainin
g an average of eighty percent?”

  I nodded. We had been equally as academic in London. Something had changed when we moved to Carlisle, and she no longer wanted to study. But in a place like this, away from all the parties and from the bad influences, she might take life seriously.

  The headmistress glanced down at her papers. “Ninety-five percent, and I want you to try out for the swim team.”

  Uncle leaned forward. “That’s too mu—”

  “Willow was London’s under-eleven county champion, yes?” asked the older woman.

  My brows furrowed. “I was, but I haven’t swum competitively since I was thirteen.”

  “Good. We need an injection of talent in that particular area.” She pulled out a piece of paper, jotted down a few numbers, signed, and pushed it across the table.

  Uncle Trevor and I read through the contract. It was nothing ominous, just an agreement that I would receive my bursary each month and a bonus at the end of the academic year subject to performance. We both signed in the appropriate spaces and pushed the paper back to the headmistress.

  She blew on the ink. “There’s one more thing. At the Brittas Academy, we take the welfare of our scholars very seriously. Bullying was an issue, but we have taken measures to stamp it out. If anyone gives you problems, contact my deputy or me.”

  “What kind of problems?” I asked.

  “Name-calling, shoving, that sort of thing,” she said in a guarded tone. “But as I said before, we have taken measures to stamp out the bullying.”

  Uncle leaned forward, hands clutching the arms of his oak chair. “Are you referring to a particular incident?”

  “It’s no cause for alarm.” She waved a plump, manicured hand. “Our students work hard and play hard. Sometimes they need a little awareness of how their words and actions impact others.”