“Where are your friends?” Jake asked.
She looked up at the least threatening of all the guys. “I don’t have any.”
Paige had never been able to make friends easily. It wasn’t something she liked to advertise to the world.
“None at all.” This came from Tonio.
“What’s the problem?” She looked at all three of them before settling on Donnie.
“We’re related.”
“No, we’re not. My mom’s screwing your dad. We’re not related. What? You think because we share a home now that I’d suddenly start cramping your style?” She glared at him, slapping her math book closed. Any appetite she’d had disappeared.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Why? Because everyone else you knew would just be dying to get into your good books? Newsflash, Donnie. I’m not interested in becoming your friend or even getting close to you. I’m not going to use anyone, not even my supposed stepbrother.” She stomped toward the trash bin and threw her sandwich in the trash. On the way back, she snatched up her bag. “I’m not so desperate for friends or to be part of your world. I didn’t have a choice in moving in with you. I didn’t know about our parents, and to be honest, Donnie, I wish my mother had never met your father.”
With that, she hiked up her bag, and started to walk away from him. She was so angry. Pissed off and angry.
“Hold up,” Donnie said, chasing after her. Spinning on her heel, she glared at him.
“I don’t want anything to do with you, Donnie Martinez. I’ve heard the rumors about you, and I just know they’re true. No ordinary family has bodyguards outside of their home. I don’t want to be part of this world. I don’t want to be living in your house. I don’t want any of it.”
“You’re part of that world now.”
“No, I’m not. I’m Paige Jones.” She held her hand out, pointing at herself. “I’ll never fit in your world, and I’ll never want to. My mom, she thinks she knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t have the first clue who she’s messing with.”
“Is this what your father told you?”
“My father didn’t tell me anything. He wanted me to get a college education, but he left without a word. It’s not like him at all.” The memory of her father’s absence brought tears to her eyes. “I’ve got school.”
She stepped around him, taking deep breaths to stop the tears falling down her cheeks.
I can do this.
The rest of the school day went by uneventfully. She didn’t walk around looking for Donnie, nor did she go searching for him. In the library at the end of the school day, she was surprised when Chantelle and Leanne sat at her table.
“Hello, stranger,” Chantelle said.
Glancing around the classroom, Paige wondered why they were sitting with her. The teacher was talking to the librarian, and everyone else was talking amongst themselves.
“What’s going on? Paige asked.
Leanne chuckled.
“We want to know why Donnie was talking to you earlier,” Chantelle said.
This was one of the reasons why she wanted to avoid talking to Donnie or have anything to do with him.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, there has to be something. Donnie doesn’t go chasing after anyone, and yet he was chasing out of the lunchroom for you.”
Gritting her teeth, Paige glanced down at her book. “It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing, and I want to find out what,” Chantelle said. “I want him, and I always get what I want.”
“Look, nothing is going on between Donnie and me.” She laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. The last thing she ever expected was for her to be denying any association with the mafia prince. “I don’t know why he wanted to talk to me. You’ve got it all wrong.” The bell rang, and Paige packed away her books. She’d never been so thankful for the bell as she was in that moment. Grabbing her books, she made her way out of the room. She practically ran for the gates of the school.
Keeping her head down, she started to walk in the direction that she did yesterday.
“You’re a fast little thing, aren’t you?” Jake asked.
She looked up to see Donnie’s friend standing in front of her. “Would you please leave me alone? I’ve got a year of school left, and I want to get through it without anyone trying to hurt me.”
“No one is going to hurt you,” he said.
“You don’t know that. There are two girls in my year who want Donnie.”
“Chantelle and Leanne?”
She didn’t say anything, simply stared at him.