Rich Boys vs. Poor Boys (The Cruel Kings of Castle Hill Academy, Book 1) by Devon Hartford kd103 Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Stay up to date with Devon

  Dedication

  Rich Boys vs. Poor Boys

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Chat with Devon

  A gift from Devon

  Other books by Devon Hartford

  Acknowledgements

  Rich Boys vs. Poor Boys

  The Cruel Kings of Castle Hill Academy

  Book 1

  Devon Hartford

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  Copyright © 2019 Devon Hartford

  All rights reserved, worldwide. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, copied, or transmitted in any medium, whether electronic, internet, or otherwise, without the expressed permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, locations, and names occurring in this book are a product of the author’s imagination, or are the property of their respective owners and are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, or persons (living or dead), is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author. All trademarks and trade names are used in a fictitious manner and are in no way endorsed by or an endorsement of their respective owners.

  Please support the arts by purchasing a copy of this ebook from an authorized online reseller in your country.

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  DEDICATION

  To my fans who wanted me to write again. You know who you are. I can’t thank you enough for your support and love over the years.

  Rich Boys vs. Poor Boys

  To my loyal readers:

  If you’ve read my other books, you know you always get your HEA (Happily Ever After). In the Cruel Kings of Castle Hill Academy, heroine Mary Angerman will eventually find true love, but it’s a rollercoaster getting there. She will meet many young men along the way, some of whom aren’t exactly easy to get along with. Because we all know that in the real world, men often aren’t, no matter how easy they are on the eyes.

  Also like real life, the teenagers in Rich Boys vs. Poor Boys frequently use graphic language, some underage drinking does occur, and there are some sexual situations, all of them consensual. The main characters are age 16 or over.

  As for the bullying, it doesn’t get any more real than that. Who hasn’t been bullied? Whether you’re young or old, it happens to all of us throughout our lives in countless different ways, big and small. It’s how you deal with it that makes all the difference.

  Never give up and never let them get you down.

  Mary Angerman never does either.

  Buckle up and hold on tight.

  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

  Devon

  <(—)>

  They made me their plaything.

  Me, Mary Angerman, a disposable distraction for the Poor Boys of Castle Hill Academy, where the Rich Boys rule and the poor follow orders.

  I never thought those four drop-dead gorgeous Poor Boys would be the ones to betray me. Turns out they’ll throw me to the wolves like so much trash and I’ll never see it coming.

  I was dumb enough to let them use me for their dirty schemes and wicked games, but still they betrayed me. Ripped my heart out and shredded it in their cruel claws.

  If it wasn’t for those three beautifully vicious Rich Boys standing by my side in my darkest hour, I’d be going to prison.

  Actual prison.

  Tried as an adult because I just turned sixteen.

  Because of me, a war is brewing between the Rich Boys and the Poor Boys and I’m caught in the middle. It would be insane for me to stay all four years.

  But I can’t leave.

  I ran away from my shattered past to get here.

  There’s no going back now.

  Prologue

  “You lied to me!” I scream at them.

  Them are the four gorgeous Poor Boys watching as a squad of Hill County Sheriff’s deputies drag me across the castle’s immense courtyard with my arms handcuffed behind my back.

  Standing off to the side are the academy faculty.

  Entering the courtyard from every direction are other students woken by the commotion. It’s dark and the moon is hidden behind sudden storm clouds.

  I keep screaming at the Poor Boys, “You said we wouldn’t get caught! You said you’d take the fall for me if we did!” I fight viciously against the strong lawmen, but I’m handcuffed and can’t break free. “I’m falling now! Why aren’t the four of you falling with me?! You’re in this too! This was your guys’s idea! Not mine!”

  I direct my angry glare at one Poor Boy in particular. The tallest and most muscular of the group with the broadest shoulders and slimmest hips, the one who’s the most stupid handsome. Painfully so. Dark hair and dark brooding eyes that have a weight to them. Standing still, he is a dark streak of danger.

  Rob Fletcher.

  Their leader.

  When I first saw those guarded eyes three months ago, they carried a hidden sadness I recognized from my own mirror. The moment our eyes met, I got him and he got me. Two halves of a whole soul, broken apart by the ravages of time and reunited after an aching eternity. I knew then that we were made for each other.

  Or so I thought.

  I trusted Rob would always catch me if I fell.

  He isn’t now. He’s just standing there stoic as a stone.

  I used to think his stoicism was a shield for his pain. Now I know better. It’s a shield for his lack of character and his relentless deception. His eyes don’t guard hidden sadness. They guard his hidden lies. If you were to cut him open, that’s all you would find.

  Lie upon lie upon lie.

  Millions of them writhing inside him like the worm he is.


  I shout, “Say something, Rob! Tell them!” I’m referring to the deputies and the academy faculty and my gawking classmates. “Tell them this was your idea! Tell them you’re the mastermind!” Rob doesn’t respond. “I put my faith in you! I did exactly what you said! Look what happened!” He won’t speak. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  Rob’s stoicism gives way to the curl of his cocky grin. The one that’s just a little bit wicked, the one I let myself fall in love with but never should have. Trust me, it didn’t happen all at once. I resisted. For months I fought it. But he was persistent.

  Now I know why.

  He was making plans to use me all along.

  “Damn you, Rob! Say something!”

  Then there’s that glimmer lighting up his eyes, the usual one that says he knows something no one else does. Something important, something grand, something that if he ever shared it with me would lift my spirits out of the gutter of my life and into the clouds. No, the only thing that glimmer ever hid was how he would bring this cruel ruse of his to fruition tonight, and at my expense.

  I’m absolutely crushed when I realize the real reason for his glimmer. The angelically beautiful and blonde Elizabeth Morgan-Hearst.

  She’s making him glimmer.

  Don’t let her beauty fool you. She is the original snake in the grass, the one who offered the apple to Adam. Eliza-bitch is proof that the Devil in the Garden of Eden wasn’t a man. She was a woman. I don’t even go to church, but I know damn well only a woman could be so scheming.

  Elizabeth is that woman.

  The one Rob is wrapping his muscled arm around right now. He rests his hand possessively on her flared hip, pulling her to his side. They’re the perfect couple. Two snakes intertwined. Okay, so I was wrong about the Garden of Eden. It obviously had a snakey She-Devil hiding behind the snakey He-Devil telling him what to do. And here they are.

  Elizabeth nuzzles into Rob and he tips his head down. They kiss, serpentine tongues coiling together. Make that slithering like snails.

  Disgust hits me like a hammer.

  With that nail, my betrayal is complete.

  I should’ve known better, known that Rob and Elizabeth have always been a thing. I denied it from day one, but I was wrong. So wrong.

  How could I not have seen it?

  Because honest genuine love is always blind.

  I fight back tears as the weight of his ultimate betrayal settles heavily onto my shoulders. “You never cared about me, did you, Rob?! You only cared about what I could do for you! I never should’ve trusted you!” I flail against the deputies, but they barely notice and keep dragging me along. “I hate you, Rob Fletcher! You’re dead to me! Do you hear me?! Dead!”

  Elizabeth laughs. The bitch laughs!

  Rob’s eyes glimmer again.

  He is evil. Pure reptilian evil.

  Rob finally breaks his superior stare and turns his back on me. His smirking asshat Poor Boy friends follow. They never look back.

  At that point, I stop fighting against the deputies.

  I never ever should’ve said yes to Rob and his friends, the other three wolves in wool suits, the gorgeous Poor Boys always by Rob’s side. They’re no better than he is, and no less beautiful.

  If only I could’ve seen past their luxurious exteriors to their rotten cores. If only I could go back in time and make a different decision. Too late for that now.

  Now I’m going to prison.

  An actual adult women’s prison.

  <(—)>

  My heart is shattered and I’m dying inside but hiding it as the deputies lead me out of the gatehouse to the visitor parking lot. It’s buzzing with patrol cars, their red and blue lights bouncing eerily off the castle’s tall stone walls.

  “WAIT!” a strong baritone voice booms out.

  It’s Prince Lancaster.

  The preeminent Rich Boy on campus.

  Blue eyes, blond hair, tan, well-muscled and well-heeled, Prince would be the picture of the perfect California surfer if he wasn’t always wearing his custom-tailored school blazer and slacks whenever he wasn’t on the lacrosse field. A Calvin Klein cologne model in the flesh, very masculine and very cologne commercial, cliff-diving off the rocks into a cobalt ocean underneath his clothes. In civil society, Prince is the picture of affluence and entitled attitude at all times, a walking work of art, a Tommy Hilfiger or Ralph Lauren fashion campaign come to life.

  Don’t let Prince’s civil image fool you.

  In the academy’s water polo matches, he’s the opposite. Prince is vicious in the water, a swift shark leading the charge. Ask his battered and broken opponents after every game. He also knows how to lead his teammates as their fearless captain, marshaling them to victory time and again. Seeing him standing poolside in a Speedo and dripping wet after winning a game is enough to make Michelangelo blush, and every single girl at Castle Hill squirm in their rolled-up uniform skirts where they sit on the hot metal bleachers. I know because it happened to me the first time I saw him spur his team to victory.

  “I SAID STOP!” Prince shouts.

  The deputies dragging me along halt suddenly as if Prince is the one in charge. I’m not surprised. Wherever Prince goes, he projects an aura of authority that everyone obeys.

  Prince rushes up to me and demands, “Are you okay, princess?”

  “I don’t know,” I whimper. Prince has that effect on me. He steals away my hardened exterior with zero effort. When I’m around him, I’m not the badass bitch I show the rest of the world. I’m his princess.

  When he hears my words, Prince’s blue eyes storm over. He glares restrained rage at the deputies and his voice cuts like a bloody sword. “Did you hurt her? So help me, if any of you hurt Mary, I will kuh—” He bites off the last word. He was going to say kill. Prince was going to say he will kill these deputies.

  For me.

  Those words of his keep my dying heart alive.

  Somehow, he restrains himself, holding back a whirlwind of murder, which is probably for the best under the circumstances.

  “Ow!” I shout as one of the deputies holding me inadvertently twists my wrists too hard, causing the handcuffs to bite into my bones.

  Prince launches himself at the lawmen, tearing them off of me like paper dolls. A flurry of action follows. Prince punches two men before four more take him to the ground.

  “Let him go!” I gasp when Prince hits the slick pavement hard. I try to break free from the two men holding me, but they’re too strong and I’m still handcuffed.

  One deputy is stabbing Prince with a stun gun while another ratchets handcuffs around his wrists.

  Prince fights back hard, ignoring the pain.

  The four men weighing him down are barely enough to restrain him, but they do.

  Suddenly, two other brash bad boys rush up to help. Prince’s best and most loyal friends.

  Duke and Chase.

  Both are tall, dark, handsome, and as delicious as Prince. With him, they should be the rightful royal princes of Castle Hill Academy, but they aren’t. Everyone knows Rob and the Poor Boys are. They’re the selfish, soulless, cruel kings who’re only out for themselves and their criminal schemes.

  Now, Duke and Chase bring the muscles and mayhem as they try to pull the four deputies off Prince. This is what loyalty looks like. No, love. Prince and his friends truly love each other, would do anything for each other, unlike Rob and the selfish Poor Boys. Those four wouldn’t know love if it tore their hearts out and stomped all over them like they did mine.

  More deputies pour into the courtyard and restrain Duke and Chase, pinning their arms behind them and pulling them away from Prince. Duke and Chase keep fighting, but there’s too many men for them to overpower.

  Prince lies with his face smashed into the pavement, still fighting and roaring, “I will have your fucking badges for this! I own this town and you know it!”

  The deputies hesitate because it’s true.

  Duke shouts, �
��Don’t worry, Mary!”

  “We’ve got this!” Chase adds.

  “We’ll take care of you!” Duke says.

  The six deputies push Prince toward a patrol car, but he resists.

  “The fuck off me!” he roars.

  The deputies pause.

  Prince locks eyes with me and says, “Don’t worry, princess! I’ve got your back! I’ll always have your back!”

  “We’ve got your back!” Duke adds, eyes angry and dark, flashing his irritation at Prince for not including him in his pronouncement.

  “The three of us!” Chase shouts.

  Duke roars, “We’ll tear down the whole fucking jail if we have to!” Classic Duke. Such a drama king, but I know he means it. His family has the finances and political connections to do anything they want, no exaggeration.

  “Stay strong, Mary!” Chase encourages. Always the supportive one, the peacemaker, the glue that holds those three together.

  “I’ll take care of this, princess!” Prince insists as he’s shoved inside a patrol car. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll take care of you!”

  In this moment, there is no one I’d rather have hold my safety and well-being in their hands than these three kings, the rightful kings of Castle Hill Academy.

  Prince, Duke, and Chase.

  I have to smile.

  Maybe one day I’ll finally get that fairytale ending I’m always dreaming about. The only question is which Prince Charming I’ll choose to be my forever after savior?

  Now I’m grinning.

  Do I have to chose?

  Chapter 1

  A few months earlier, my life went off the rails and took me with it. If it hadn’t, I never would’ve ended up at the exclusive, secretive, and somewhat sinister Castle Hill Academy.

  They say you can’t run away from your problems.

  I used to think “they” were wrong.

  Nope.

  “They” are right.