Beautiful Prince (Van der Borne University Book 1) Read online

  Beautiful Prince

  VAN DER BORNE UNIVERSITY BOOK 1

  DAKOTA LEE

  Beautiful Prince

  Copyright © 2021 Dakota Lee

  All rights reserved.

  Photographer: GVS

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the over publisher of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This eBook is licensed for your personal use only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

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  Warning

  Darling reader,

  Beautiful Prince is a new adult, dark college, bully romance intended for mature readers, 18+. This book is part of a trilogy and ends on a cliffhanger.

  This mature new adult romance contains bullying, dubious situations, blackmail, crude language, and intense sexual content that some readers might find triggering or offensive.

  Please proceed with caution.

  The book is part of a trilogy and is NOT a standalone.

  Acknowledgments

  When I decided to sit in front of the computer and write a book, I didn’t know how many highs and lows I would experience or how much worry I would have when it finally came time for sharing it with others.

  A special thank you goes out to my beta readers AJ, Rickan, Susan, and Tracie. Thank you for providing such valuable insight and feedback on the story. You guys gave me that last boost of confidence I needed to hit publish.

  And to you, readers, thank you for taking a chance on an unknown author and reading this book. I hope I was able to give you a guilt free escape from the business of life.

  Until next time,

  Dakota

  Beautiful Prince

  Van der Borne University

  Home to the

  Privileged. Powerful. Elite

  My friends and I own this school, ruling it with our lavish parties, twisted games and scandalous bets.

  Then she showed up threatening our hierarchy, refusing to play, refusing to bow. So now, I’ll make an example of her. Turning her into an unwitting pawn on my board.

  I’ll win her trust and pull her into the dark depraved world I command, taking away everything that matters to her.

  When I’m done she’ll be an empty shell, and this will be my greatest triumph.

  Because the most satisfying type of destruction is the one they never see coming.

  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

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek at Broken Princess

  Prologue

  1. Chapter One

  About the Author

  Connect with Dakota

  The games we play…

  Chapter One

  Frankie crosses the room like the air and space belong only to him. I guess in a way it does since this is his family's lake house. We're taking it easy this last week of vacation before everyone returns to school. Call it a reset, if you will. Nothing gets the creative juices flowing like time away from the extravagance and debauchery of our everyday lives. Exhaling a forceful breath, I watch as my friend makes his way across the floor. A bit of 'every day' has made its way into the party. I can tell by the determined set of his shoulders, that Frankie's on a mission to satisfy a bet. Tonight's task is simple compared to some other ones he's taken part in, and if you ask me, this bet is premature.

  The first bet or dare of the school year usually happens around homecoming. It's an unspoken expectation that we take the first few weeks back on campus to prepare for it. These aren't merely random musings of bored young adults. We crossed the threshold of I dare you to drink hot sauce years ago. The bets are never benign. The stakes have to be worth something. Tonight, the Aston Martin Valkyrie Hal's dad brought last Christmas is worth Frankie giving up something. The thrill of smashing it into a wall is worth something more.

  I see Destiny Silver's little sister Dynasty on the other end of the patio door. Ah. So it's time to implode his summer fling, in public, with the baby sister. Destiny's gonna have his balls for this. Hal's on the chair across from me, a giddy smile on his face. It's a combination of the bet, the drinks, and whatever pharmaceuticals he's ingested. Little Dynasty turned 18 last month, and she's not so little anymore. What happens next will either make or break her reputation at school. Either way, it's gonna cause some drama with her sister.

  "This is so fucked up." Tabitha Bianchi- yes, those Bianchi’s-laments, taking the seat beside me.

  "You didn't try to talk him out of this?" I ask, my eyes trained on the door.

  "How could I? You know the golden rule."

  I do. It's the reason we're so close. Our time, trust, and devotion belong only to our group. We date and we mingle, content to let people float in and out, but the minute one of us feels an emotion stronger than lust, we cut it out like a cancer. Most of the time the knife cut comes in the form of the shit that's about to happen. The demise of any romantic entanglement is so permanent and thorough, there's no way to recover from it.

  This is one of many reasons I don't do relationships. I keep my emotions in check and the minute I even think a girl's thoughts are turning toward forever; I put an end to things. No pair of tits or ass is worth a fake or real pregnancy, or that brass ring around someone's finger. If marriage is in my future, it'll accompany what my dad calls the perfect business merger. An alliance that will take our already ridiculously wealthy bank account to anoth
er level. For now, school, these jokers; and when I find time, my artwork is what I'm focusing on.

  I watch as my friend takes Dynasty's hand and leads her towards the hot tub.

  "Shit, he's really doing it." Tabitha shifts on the couch to get a better look.

  We all know there's only one way this is going to end. Hal sniffs and rubs a knuckle against his nose. "Frankie let his heart get involved, but nobody's forcing him to do this."

  The murmurs ripple through the party and I see the moment word reaches Destiny. The screaming starts before she reaches them, pushing through the throng of people who are standing around, attention fixated on the hot tub. It's like driving by a traffic accident or a fight on the playground. Nobody knows how to mind their own fucking business.

  My friends and I hold our positions. There's only one way to win a bet. You need proof that you completed your task. Our phones chime in rapid succession. I swipe to open the notification when the message comes in. The tiniest jolt of interest dings through my brain when I look at the picture. Dynasty just earned an ‘A’ in holding her breath under water. It takes some skill to do it while sucking someone off. Has the baby sister been practicing for her moment in the spotlight?

  I almost feel sorry for Destiny when she rips through the house, knocking people and their beverages over in her haste to escape. Almost. She's been around long enough to know how we operate. She never should've let herself get too close.

  Tabby raises her cup in salute. "To the first day of school."

  Hal and I raise are cups too, I whisper the benediction. “Audentis Fortuna Iuvat.”

  My father, Davis McKay, is sitting at the white and grey granite marble table in our massive kitchen when I come down for breakfast. I stare at him like he's an apparition because he's rarely here in the morning. Afternoon, or evenings, for that matter. Running a multimedia empire is time-consuming. No. That's not true. Running a multi media empire and banging all of your secretaries and your friend's secretaries. That's time consuming. I'm still not sure how any of his wives put up with him for all of those years. I'm the product of his first marriage. The one that lasted three years short of the term of the prenup and the only one I think mattered to him.

  I wonder if having his heart broken is what turned him into the guy who can't keep it in his pants. It's weird, the relationship my parents have. Seventeen years after their divorce and they're still friends. It makes for awkward dinner conversation when he tells the woman he's dating that he's taking my mother’s advice about their relationship. It makes for even more awkward vacations when he sends my mother a ticket to join us on the slopes for the holiday.

  My mother, Emilia Wainwright, is currently on vacation on the Amalfi coast. She's on husband number two and they’ve been married for twelve years. He's a cool enough guy. Loves the shit out of her and spoils her rotten, but I've been living with my dad since I was ten.

  Dad is horrible at commitment, forgets everything that's not related to the company's bottom line, and never met a problem he couldn't throw money at. But compared to what some of my friends have to deal with, he's a pretty decent father and neither I, nor my little brother or sister, want for anything.

  That includes the newest gadgets, the fastest cars, and the biggest house in the neighborhood. Seven bedrooms, eight bathrooms, and an indoor gym, pool, movie theater and bowling alley. There's no reason to ever leave the house, which is why I leave every chance I get. Sometimes the echoes of this overly large and indulgent space annoy the hell out of me.

  Dad's phone chimes. I recognize the ringtone he's assigned for his personal assistant. Now, there's a woman whose legs he's never been between and in the dozen or so years she's been working for him, I don't think he's ever tried. I can't make the same claim for myself. I was only half kidding when I asked her what color panties she was wearing on my eighteenth birthday. She reminded me she used to make my orthodontist appointments and arrange for dad's driver to pick me up from my playdates and promptly turned me down.

  I cross the room, snagging an orange from the fruit tray. "Is that your one hour warning or the twenty-minute warning?" The answer will determine whether I'm sitting down for breakfast or driving back to campus this morning.

  "Twenty minutes." He responds without looking up from the papers in his hand.

  "Right, let's make this quick then."

  Every year at the start of the fall semester, dad likes to remind me of the responsibility I have to the family name and business. He gives me a list of teachers to get face time with and warns me about any transfers or new enrollments that may be problematic to my position at school.

  And every year, I assure him that my friends and I are still at the top of the food chain and I'm still in charge of the school's newspaper. It's the one extra-curricular activity that he approves of, because he uses it to scope out up-and-coming talent.

  I brace myself for the speech, that doesn't come. "Dad. You don't wanna do the thing this year?"

  "Is there any point? You already know what I'd say."

  "True. But that's never stopped you before."

  He sets the document down, pushing it to the side, and removes his glasses. I know whatever he has to say will either be poignant and thought provoking, or utter crap. "You know anything about Atticus's car?"

  "It's a beauty kept in a museum that's supposed to be a garage under security tighter than nuclear launch codes, and he loses his shit whenever someone even looks at it."

  "Exactly. Which is why I was surprised to hear it was stolen and needs extensive repairs." He eyes me over his coffee.

  "That sounds horrible. I hope the police catch the perpetrators."

  He ‘hmpfs’ me because we both know there's only one way that car got out of the garage, and there's no way Atticus is pressing charges on his own son.

  "One day the stunts you and your friends pull are going to have real consequences that we won't be able to protect you from."

  I give my father a confident smirk. "Relax, dad. You taught me that there's nothing we don't own, control, or influence; therefore, we're always protected."

  Thanks to my father, and the legacy our family built, we live like royalty and I’m the heir apparent to the McKay Media throne. Dad owns stock in all the major trades and entertainment companies, and he's one of the wealthiest media moguls in North America.

  Our paper may not get the distribution of the Times or Post, but we certainly benefit from their success by working behind the scenes to influence what goes into the news cycle. Our magazine, however, rivals anyone else's and our e-content has come a long way in the last few years, thanks to the interns dad has hired from my school, Van der Borne University.

  I learned at a young age, that with our lifestyle comes the open road to excess. Drugs, drinks, women. It's why my friends and I find non-traditional ways to relieve the boredom. When you're on top of it all, your elevated status leaves you cold and numb. The only way to feel is to take life to the extreme.

  We all have our vices, the things that make us feel alive. Franklin Thorne chases the thrill of speed, Hal Bishop drinks way too much, Isabelle Lance is a sadistic bitch who gets off on exploiting and toying with people's lives, and Tabitha Bianchi. She won't admit it, but she's lonely. Her emotionally stunted ass seeks a connection by falling onto the dicks of random guys.

  She's got typical rich girl abandonment issues. Mommy and daddy are too busy being part of the social elite, to recognize that their little princess lost her virginity at a wrap party, to the son of a famous casting director. Hell, they'd need to know we hopped a flight to LA that weekend, before they could even begin to piece together everything that happened.

  Me, I'm addicted to secrets. Hearing them and uncovering them. The darker, the better. It was my idea that all bets needed proof. If rule number one is, there are no rules. Rule number two is never agree to do something you wouldn't want everyone else finding out about.

  That brings me to the reason I'm heading back to
school two days earlier than planned. The blog sites smell blood in the water, and I have it on good authority there's about to be a new headline on Matilda Slade's current dilemma. The bet she made is coming back to haunt her. It seemed innocent enough when someone pitched the idea to her, but she soon found out her sandy beach hookup with the tennis pro was caught on camera. Explaining it to the guy whose ring she's wearing was news at eleven.

  I invited Matilda to my dorm room to talk. She's sitting at my desk watching me unpack. Her eyes are red and blotchy as if she's been crying all night. I slide my t-shirt drawer closed, and turn to face her. "I'm not sure what you think I can do about it. A bet is a bet."