Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School Book 3) Read online

  Bitter Kisses

  It’s Just High School Book 3

  Thandie

  Contents

  Title

  Trigger Warning

  Playlist

  Synopsis

  Author Note

  Prologue

  1. Julian

  2. Mia

  3. Julian

  4. Mia

  5. Mia

  6. Julian

  7. Mia

  8. Julian

  9. Mia

  10. Mia

  11. Julian

  12. Julian

  13. Mia

  14. Mia

  15. Julian

  Bitter Kisses.

  Copyright © 2021 by Thandiwe Mpofu

  Cover Designed by TRC Designs

  Copyright Law:

  If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, this book has been pirated and you’re stealing. Please delete it from your device and support the author by purchasing a legal copy.

  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 the above copyright owner of this book or publisher.

  This book, Bitter Kisses, 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 trademarked statue and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication or use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  First Edition, March 2021

  Trigger Warning

  Due to the mature and graphic descriptions in this book which contains dark material, this book may trigger psychological and/or emotional lapses in some readers. This book should NOT be read by persons under the age of 18. Reader discretion is advised. Please do not take this warning lightly.

  To the wait. Thank you for the lessons.

  Playlist

  “Amnesia” by 5 Seconds of Summer

  “Leaving California” by Marron 5

  “Sue Me” by Sabrina Carpenter

  “Bed of Lies” by Nicki Minaj

  “You Were Good To Me” by Jeremy Zucker, Chelsea Cutler

  “Kiss it Better” by Rihanna

  “Someone New” by BANKS

  “Life is Worth the Living” by Justin Bieber

  “Can We Kiss Forever” by Kina, Adriana Proenza

  For more, check out the full playlist on Spotify.

  Synopsis

  Lies. Betrayal. Secrets. Hate.

  All circles of hell that we’ve been through like levels in a game.

  But… we lost.

  Trust is really deception.

  Contracts are ruthless vendettas in writing.

  Now we’re in the very pit of hell with the power to crush a soul, to save a life, to secure a future, all rests in my frozen hands.

  I’ve been a puppet and I’m broken beyond repair.

  But it doesn’t matter.

  I have empty memories, a blank future and a shredded soul.

  But I think I still love him.

  Bitter consequences be damned…

  So, you tell me, what kind of fool does that make me?

  Author Note

  Hello dear reader!

  Here we are, at the end of Mia & Julian’s crazy journey. Bitter Kisses, It’s Just High School #3 is NOT a standalone. The first two books have to be read first, Devious Kisses & Cruel Kisses.

  This book contains some very graphic material that might trigger some readers and is not recommended for readers under the age of 18. Please don’t ignore this warning and proceed with caution.

  Thank you for reading and don’t forget to join my Facebook Reader group and let’s chat: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thandiespitfires/

  I hope you enjoy!

  “It was a fine cry – loud and long – but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.”

  —Toni Morrison

  In this story though, she learns from her sorrow and he learns how to love her through everything…

  Prologue

  Julian

  The end of Cruel Kisses, It’s Just High School Book 3

  I don’t remember the last time I put in a word to the Big Guy upstairs, but I think in those rare, few times, I didn’t get an answer back. Probably explains why I’m messed up. Or why I don’t bother talking to Him, but right now, it’ll take a whole ‘Moses parted the Red Sea’ kind of miracle to get me out of this.

  “Just give it to me straight,” Dad demands. “What are we looking at here?”

  We’re in Dad’s office in LA with a bunch of stuffy lawyers. One of them has been dad’s lawyer since before I was born. He even worked with Mia’s asshole of a father once and so dad bought him on my case to see how all this will play out.

  “It’s not looking good,” the old guy—let’s call him Grey—grumbles, running a hand down his face. “With the missing person’s report, the abandoned car, the video…”

  Now that surprises me.

  “The video?” I snap, looking up now.

  “Oh good, you’re paying attention,” Dad drawls, looking annoyed. “I was beginning to wonder if you even give a damn about your future.”

  “You’re not a saint for doing this, Dad,” I fire back.

  “You’re damn right I’m not a fucking saint,” he grumbles, watching me with an equally pissed off glare. “I’m your father. I’ll do what I must to protect you.”

  It would have been a touching little speech and a powerful, cliché show of love if he wasn’t actually my father or THE John Fitzgerald; a ruthless businessman who liked playing hardball and watching little businesses collapse while he profits from them. Besides he and I both know why he’s doing this, but we won’t talk about that right now, so I just stare at him, tugging the damn tie I’m wearing for the court hearing this afternoon.

  “What video are you talking about?” I question, still holding dad’s gaze.

  “Well,” the Old Grey clears his throat, looking uncomfortable. “I got word through my contacts that they have a video of you with your hand around Ms. Montague’s neck from before the summer.”

  “It’s completely fabricated,” Dad says, staring at me. “Isn’t it?” But he knows better. I refuse to say anything and get back to staring out the large floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking downtown LA and allow her face to filter in my mind.

  It’s been two weeks since I last saw her, tears streaming down her face like a torrent, her eyes filled with pain, begging me for something. Obviously, it was artifice, Mia is an extremely great actress.

  She tried to see me, looking for me everywhere but I just couldn’t stand to see her when so much chaos was happening in my head, my soul and everything else she managed to snake her way into.

  She was faking it this entire time while she reeled me in like a damn fish, captivating me with her sweet kisses, her touch and the warm, soft comfort in her arms that allowed me to just be my-fucking-self, to breathe, to feel and in a way, to heal.

  But she was just wrapping chains around me and when I finally realized what she was doing, my face was all over the internet, an arrest warrant was issued, and everything has been going down the drain since.

  But was she really playing me? Did she fake the way she was looking at me? Did she lie to my damn heart? Bec
ause for a moment there, I really believed she felt what I was feeling, that she loved me back, that she was MINE. Was she?

  “We can argue that the recording is inadmissible and that it was also fabricated,” Old Grey is saying when I tune back into the conversation. “But if they can get witnesses who can corroborate the story, then it’s highly likely the judge will allow it to be entered as evidence against us.”

  “And if it’s admitted, what then?” I question, keeping my voice low.

  “Then we fight it with everything we have,” he says, but I can hear the doubt in his voice.

  “What’s the charge to something like this?”

  “Julian, we’ll win this,” Dad says, a bit of worry in his eyes, but that’s not what I want to hear right now.

  “How many years could the judge sentence me if this case goes south?” Which it’s likely to go. Once a buzz like this about you is out, whether you’re guilty or not, it sticks. People remember that about you when they hear your name.

  “Son—”

  “Come on, Dad, Nathan has been out for blood for years now, you said it yourself. You think he won’t see this through to the end?” I mutter, then glance back to look at Old Grey and the rest of the lawyers. “Lay it on me, how many years?”

  “Well,” Old Grey starts, shifting in his chair, looking uncomfortable. “They are accusing you of kidnapping which does not have a statute of limitation; criminal harassment, which at your age and background we can get that off as a misdemeanor but I assure you, with the video, they might ask for the full extent of the law and have you charged for that as a felony.”

  “Also, they’ll want to point out that you’re a sex offender,” one of the other lawyers says.

  “What?” Dad grits out, banging his fist on the table, but I think I saw that coming.

  “Yes, John,” Old Grey says. “Mia is still a minor, and well, they are putting everything on this, hoping that it all sticks so the judge will sentence him to the fullest extent.”

  Of course, they would do that. So, in other words, I’m totally and royally fucked.

  And all because I bothered to give in to my whims and compulsive desires for that Little Minx.

  “Well then,” I say, glancing down at my watch. “Isn’t it time to go to the courthouse and do this thing?”

  All the stuffy looking lawyers get up to leave but Dad doesn’t. He sits there, staring at me. Old Grey glances at me, then at my dad, a silent message passing between the two that makes a frisson of dread go down my spine.

  “No,” I say when the room clears, leaving me, my dad and Old Grey. I don’t need to hear what they want to ask, because I already know.

  “Son,” Dad sighs, looking a decade older in that moment. “It might help you.”

  “I said no.” It’s as simple as that.

  “If you give them a bit of information, that the relationship you had with her was entirely consensual, some of the charges will be off the table,” Old Grey says. “It might help reduce the charge, then we can get the judge to reduce the rest of whatever they wanted to charge you with down to maybe several months of community service closer to Stanford.”

  Yeah, but that’s like going in there and singing a broken tune that I wasn’t sticking my dick in her pussy without her participation. That she didn’t want me to make her come on my dick, clenching hard like she wanted to send me to hell, or that she wasn’t screaming my name and begging me to teach her how to make herself come.

  The whole thing is already humiliating enough without adding that shit, but dad already knows why I won’t do it.

  “Henry, can you give me and my son a moment?” Dad asks, making me sigh. I don’t want to hear whatever he has to say.

  “Sure,” Old Grey says. “I’ll meet you in court in twenty minutes.”

  “Yes, we’re right behind you.”

  When Old Grey is gone, Dad gets up and walks over to my side, taking in the view of the city like I am, not saying a word. I appreciate the silence and the fact that right now, he isn’t pushing.

  “If you think I’m going to change my mind about giving them some fabricated dirt to use on her…”

  “I wasn’t going to ask you to do that,” he mutters, cutting me off.

  “What then?”

  “I was going to ask if you believe her.”

  This time I turn around to stare at him in shock.

  “What?”

  “Well, she did tell you she didn’t know what her father was doing and that she believed she was in danger when she did all that stuff.” Dad shifts on his feet, never glancing away from the view in front of us. “Do you believe her?”

  “How did you know all that?”

  “Your brother told me that day when he came begging me to do something.”

  Goddamn it, Liam and his fucking big mouth.

  “I don’t know,” I grit out, my jaw ticking.

  “Since when don’t you know?” Dad grunts, pissing me off now.

  I don’t want to tell him the truth. The truth that I don’t know if I believe her simply because if I do, if I hold on to the quiver that I heard in her voice or the way her tears broke my damn heart the last time I saw her, then I’ll succumb only to let her shatter me all over again.

  “I have old Band-Aids all over my soul that are barely holding me together, Julian. You can’t possibly love someone like me.”

  Fuck, didn’t she know that I have a thin thread loosely running through mine? That I loved her for so long, I would’ve gladly taken her in any way that I could and now… protecting her when she was just playing me… I don’t want to believe that, so I don’t fucking know.

  “Since she entered my life like a fucking storm, I’ve no idea what the fuck is going on.”

  The most raw, honest answer I’ve admitted to my father, hell to myself. I notice him glance at me from the corner of his eye, studying me and for the first time in my life, I see something I’ve never seen in his eyes before.

  Complete and utter understanding.

  We don’t say a word as we stand there. Time stretches and expands as we stare out at the city. There’s so much I want to say, but I don’t. So much I wanted to do but will never get the chance to do any of that shit.

  It’s fucked up, sure, but in all that, I just clench my jaw and then sigh, turning around to grab my suit jacket so we can get this dog and pony show on the road.

  I might rot in jail soon. I might not get to live the life I wanted to live or watch my brother grow into an incredible human being, full of life. I might miss out on so many opportunities of being right there with my best friend as we broke record after record in football, all that might happen, but the one thing I regret the most, is kissing Mia that first time.

  I should’ve never kissed her.

  When we get to court, Old Grey is waiting at the door, looking flustered and out of breath like he’s just run a thirty-yard sprint and is about to have a heart attack from it. High cholesterol, definitely.

  “Henry?” Dad questions, a frown on his face.

  “The judge threw out the case,” he pants, his face red, his eyes wide with shock.

  “What?” Dad demands like he didn’t hear him the first time.

  “In all my years practicing law, a case like this has almost always been a sure shoe-in, but when I arrived here ten minutes ago and talked to the clerk, she told me the judge threw out the case a few minutes ago and that all charges were dropped against your boy,” Old Grey shouts, practically bouncing off his feet, a proud look on his face while I just stand there, staring at him, trying to hear what he’s not saying. The why part of it.

  “They just dropped the case?” I question, my stomach sinking, not knowing what to do with this.

  “Yes!”

  “Just like that?” Dad asks, an impassive look on his face that mirrors mine. Is he thinking what I’m thinking?

  “Yes, this is good news! You could be a little happier.”

  Oh, I’m thrilled, just j
umping with joy. Dad and I glance at each other. Why the sudden change of heart now, Mia? What game are you now playing at?

  Just then, I see Cole and Liam walking toward us, both of them dressed to the nines in tailor made suits, sans tie. I’m the only one who looks like a damn highly paid car salesman with the damn tie Dad forced me to put on.

  I see it on their faces before they even come to a stop. They already know.

  “Holy shit, you’re free!” Liam hollers, confirming my suspicions.

  They know and they had something to do with this.

  “Where is she?” I grit out, my voice so low, Cole quirks an eyebrow, sensing my anger.

  “You could look a little happier,” he counters.

  “What did you do?” I demand just as Dad turns to Old Grey and shakes his hand, dismissing him. I turn fully to look at my brother and best friend just as Dad joins the little circle in front of the courthouse.

  “Okay you two, what the hell is going on?” Dad demands, his voice brooking no argument.

  “Come on, Dad,” Liam starts. “The truth prevailed. Mia never lied to you.”

  It’s like a punch to the gut. I’m silent as I stare at him, like what he’s saying is foreign to my ears, but I know it’s not. The thing in my chest is telling me it’s all true.

  “Dude, Mia was right about everything she said,” Liam goes on. “She really thought her life was in danger, that’s why she ran.”