Defiant Princess (Boys of Oak Park Prep 2)

Our coffee date ended up lasting a couple hours, and I wasn’t sure what he told Jacqueline about where he’d been, but I didn’t care. I had no interest in talking to her, but I was glad to have a tiny sliver of a real family back in my life.

Over the weekend, I juggled studying with continuing my research on the Princes. I’d told Finn that he could try to prove he’d changed, but I hadn’t promised him a truce. And besides, part of me was still sure all those feelings I had thought I’d seen in his eyes were fake, lies to lure me in again.

Digging up dirt on him and the rest of the Princes felt like fortifying my defenses. And I needed them to be strong.

On Saturday night, I spent a few hours pouring over The Great Gatsby and then pushed the book aside and dragged my laptop onto the couch with me, flopping across the cushions on my stomach before prying it open.

I’d been Googling each of the Princes’ names along with different combinations of words, trying to find something beyond the top ten results that popped up at the first search.

Tonight, I typed in Finn Whittaker Oak Park, then clicked through the first few webpages. Eventually, my search led me down a rabbit hole of prep school admissions forums, where parents got together and bitched about what schools their kids should’ve gotten into or were unfairly waitlisted for. I wasn’t even quite sure at first why I landed there, but as I scrolled down the page, Finn’s name popped up.

Anderson4810: It’s not exactly fair that someone like Finn Whittaker is taking up a slot at Oak Park Prep. My daughter was waitlisted, and she actually has the grades to earn a place there.

CA.Dad.28: What do you mean?

Anderson4810: Just that money can buy a lot of things.

CA.Dad.28: Yeah, I guess they’re hoping that NFL money will come back to them later.

Anderson4810: Or they already got their kickback.

CA.Dad.28: You think?

Anderson4810: I know.

The conversation moved on to other topics after that, but I went over that short exchange several times, trying to read between the lines. Had Finn’s admission to Oak Park been bought? I knew he’d struggled in some classes and that he’d had a hard time keeping his grades up, but maybe it’d been worse than I’d thought.

That couldn’t really be that big of a scandal though, could it? Wasn’t that how these things went? I knew Oak Park had the transcripts from my old high school, and my grades had been fine—but that school hadn’t exactly been challenging. I was sure Jacqueline had greased the wheels as much as she had to to assure me a spot here.

Still, I pulled the little black notebook out of my bag and flipped the pages open, then wrote admissions to Oak Park rigged under Finn’s section.

It didn’t seem as damaging as the information I had on the other two, but maybe that was just because I didn’t know this world. The commenters in that forum had seemed pretty pissed about it.

I looked for more info but couldn’t find it, so after I flipped over onto my back and rested the laptop on my stomach, I tried a new search.

Element Investments Founders.

Then I typed in the names of all the people I knew and scrolled through the search results. Several of the websites and articles were ones I’d already visited, but at the bottom of the second page, I found something new.

It was a short piece on both the beginning and end of the company, the only one I’d found that even referenced the firm going under. According to the article, Element Investments was disbanded just over a year after its creation, and it sounded like everyone involved had lost money on it.

Was that why the Princes hated me so much? Because of this business their parents had started with my mom, and the fact that it went under?

That didn’t make any sense though. Jacqueline had told me the Prescotts were one of the richest families in Roseland, so it wasn’t like they’d suffered from the loss.

Although… hadn’t she also said that the Van Burens had dealt with some money issues a while ago? Could that be related to Element Investments? Had they had more on the line than the others somehow?

Tugging my bottom lip between my teeth, I lifted my head off the pillow a little, leaning toward the screen as I continued to read. The sun had gone down while I was studying, and I hadn’t bothered to turn on a light yet, so the glow of my laptop was the only thing illuminating the room.

The piece was short, and obviously no one involved had been interviewed, because details were sparse—but the article seemed to be a general precaution against mixing business with friendship. At the very bottom of the page, there was a picture of a group of smiling people gathered around a sign that read Element Investments. There were no babies present in this picture, unlike in the photo in my grandparents’ hallway, but I was sure they’d both been taken around the same time.

The extra man was in this picture, the one whose name I hadn’t been able to find out. But the caption below the image listed each person individually, and I scanned the screen with my finger until I found his. Adam Pierce.

Huh. Why don’t your kids go to this school with all the others, Adam?

Maybe they’d graduated already, or were too young to attend. Or maybe they were here, and had been cut out by the Princes like I had been for some reason. I should be able to find a current student roster and search for any Pierces.

Still chewing on that thought, I grabbed my notebook and pen. Under Mason’s name, I scribbled family has money problems. And on a separate page, since I wasn’t quite sure where to put it, I added who is Adam Pierce? does he have kids? where’s that legacy?