Ficorpio
Chapter 1
I was Adrian Sterling’s devoted little doormat.
When he skipped class to sleep, I covered for him.
When he pursued the new transfer student, I delivered his love letters.
After graduation, she earned a place at a top university in Britain, while I followed Adrian to an Ivy League school in the States.
Far from home, I finally got the man I’d spent years chasing, and indulged to my heart’s content.
Then the transfer student came to America for graduate school too.
The first time Adrian stayed out all night because of her again, I breathed a sigh of relief.
It was time for me to return to Britain and build a life of my own.
The Sterling family had paid my way overseas. I’d have felt too guilty to bring up breaking up with him myself.
The Sterlings were the wealthiest and most powerful family in Hawthorne Park Enclave.
And Adrian had always ruled over the neighborhood kids.
I’d followed him around since we were little. He came up with the best games, and he was the best-looking boy among us.
If his family hadn’t objected, one of the talent scouts who kept approaching him would have whisked him into show business years ago.
One look at Adrian’s face was enough to improve my appetite.
More importantly, the closer I was to him, the better I was treated at home.
As we grew older, the girls and boys stopped spending every waking hour together.
I was different.
I kept trailing after Adrian without a shred of shame.
Under everyone’s expectant gaze, he grew into a striking young man, with sharp eyes, a clean-cut jaw, and the effortless swagger of a born troublemaker.
Meanwhile, I gradually became known as his desperate devotee.
People mocked me. They looked down on me and treated me with contempt.
What they didn’t know was that I gained more than any of them.
Adrian didn’t like me, which made the Sterling family trust me.
My family gained access to their connections, and I followed Adrian into an exclusive class filled with the children of Britain’s power elite.
High school for the children of the power elite was anything but dull.
Their families had mapped out their futures long ago. All roads led to Rome, and if one didn’t, their parents could carve out a new one from thin air.
I was different. My family could guarantee that I would never go hungry or lack decent clothes. In situations where pedigree mattered, my background was respectable enough not to count against me. That was all.
So I clung even tighter to Adrian Sterling.
When he skipped class, I covered for him.
When he slept through lessons, I copied his assignments for him.
Even when he took an interest in the new transfer student, I was the one who dug up everything there was to know about her.
Claire Ellis was the stubborn, resilient type, a scholarship girl who had earned her place at Hawthorne Academy on a full bursary.
Chapter 2
Countless girls had pursued Adrian over the years. Sweet girls, seductive girls, daughters of celebrities, daughters of politicians. Every last one of them had failed.
At one point, I’d even wondered whether Adrian liked women at all.
Then Claire walked to the front of the classroom and introduced herself.
Suddenly, something in him clicked.
Adrian had no idea how to court anyone, but he spent three awkward months trying to win her over.
I used the opportunity to outdo every other desperate devotee in his circle and prove myself more useful to Adrian than any of them.
Oh, and those boys never called themselves desperate devotees. They introduced themselves as Adrian’s childhood friends.
Apparently, because they were male, flattering Adrian and bending over backward for him counted as friendship. When I did it, I was a pathetic doormat.
Hilarious.
I bought Claire breakfast and partnered with her for tennis in PE. I was the first person at Hawthorne Academy to treat her with such warmth.
Whenever she looked at me, her eyes shone with gratitude and trust.
That was when I handed her the love letter I’d prepared in advance.
Claire froze.
She stared at me in disbelief.
I hurried to explain. “Young Mr. Sterling wrote it for you.”
Just as I’d expected, Claire threw the letter straight into the bin.
Adrian confronted her afterward, only for Claire to call him a spoiled trust-fund brat.
She never spoke another word to me.
I didn’t care.
I was too busy consoling Adrian over his broken heart.
Everything had gone his way since the day he was born. This was the first real rejection he’d ever faced.
He pretended it didn’t bother him and started drinking, but it took only two glasses before he was drunk.
Then he cradled my face in both hands and asked me over and over, “Why? Why doesn’t she like me?”
I soothed him softly. “Because she has terrible taste.”
Then I said, “Adrian Sterling, I like you.”
Through the haze in his confused eyes, I saw a flicker of sudden clarity.
After Claire Ellis rejected him, Adrian Sterling suddenly started behaving like the rest of his privileged childhood friends, changing girlfriends with dizzying frequency.
One a week.
Sometimes one managed to last a month.
But his eyes never stopped following Claire.
Before long, the national college entrance exams arrived.
When the results came out, Claire earned a place at a top Russell Group university. Adrian chose to study abroad.
Chapter 3
One day, when I delivered some of my mother’s homemade desserts to the Sterling house, Catherine Sterling asked where I planned to go.
I feigned indifference. “That depends on my results.”
“You know I’m not much of a student, Mrs. Sterling.”
Actually, I was.
But I had spent most of high school looking after Adrian.
Whenever he came down with a fever or a cold, I was the first to contact the Sterling family’s secretary. Whenever he went abroad and ran wild, I followed along and kept his family informed.
Mrs. Sterling fell into thoughtful silence.
That summer was an agonizingly long wait for me.
Everyone else was waiting for exam scores, university offers, and the start of term.
I was waiting for Lady Luck to smile on me.
At last, on a quiet summer evening, Mrs. Sterling called personally and invited my entire family over.
Even now, I remember how cool the breeze felt that night and how sharply the cicadas sang.
She had no idea how long I had been grounded before that evening.
I had won my gamble.
For a long time to come, my future would be tied to Adrian Sterling’s.
And the brighter his future became, the more of that light would spill onto mine.
A month later, Adrian and I left for the United States to attend an Ivy League university.
His childhood friends looked at me with naked envy.
“Sophie Bennett, do you really enjoy being such a desperate devotee?”
“Aren’t you worried no one will ever marry you? Oh, wait. You can spend the rest of your life clinging to Adrian. You and your future children can all live off him like freeloaders.”
Just look at them.
A man’s jealousy was an ugly thing.
After we moved abroad, Adrian Sterling became even more sought-after.
His features had matured, leaving him poised somewhere between boyhood and manhood. The sharp angles of his face had taken on a sensual edge that made it hard not to stare.
And I continued letting him order me around without complaint.
During our first year abroad, Adrian ran wild. He might wake up in Seattle and be in Los Angeles by nightfall. He still changed girlfriends every week.
Then, over New Year’s, Richard Sterling’s mistress showed up in front of Catherine with his thirteen-year-old illegitimate son.
Catherine told Adrian not to come home.
So I stayed with him in New York City for the holiday.
As we waited up together on New Year’s Eve, he suddenly asked, “Chloe Bennett, do you think anyone’s heart can stay the same forever?”
I barely hesitated. “Yes.”
Adrian smiled. “But I think I’ve stopped liking Vivian Reed.”