Cruel Summer Box Set

Book : Cruel Summer

by Rachel Van Dyken

Genres: Contemporary Romance; New Adult Romance; Enemies to Lovers; summer beach read; Second Chance Romance; summer; camp; box set; first love; boxset

Synopsis

#1 New York Times bestselling author Rachel Van Dyken delivers a sexy three-book enemies to lovers, new adult, angsty romance with a Dirty Dancing twist!

 

Spoiled Princess is what he used to call me.
We were an inferno of hate and passion wound up with a dash of chaos.

For four years, I watched him mow my lawn.
For four years, I watched my friends make fun of him.
For four years, I hated myself for wanting him, but even more for the way I treated him.

And then I had him.
For one night, we put all labels away, and I spent the best night of my life in his arms.
Then the next day, with my secret night under lock and key, I looked the other way while my friends shamed him.

But now the joke's on me because the scrawny lawn boy who I secretly loved from afar is now the director of Hollywood's most exclusive summer camp.

And I'm on his staff.
Now it's his turn to punish me.
His turn to make me pay.
His turn to take his revenge after years of humiliation.

He's no longer a boy you can ridicule.
But a college graduate who can have any woman he wants.
I want him to look at me the way he did that one night we had together, but right now, the look in his eyes tells me he's going to enjoy having me under him for two straight months.

I don't know where his hatred ends, and his passion begins.
All I know is he wants revenge.
And I'm his lucky target.

 

The Cruel Summer Box Set includes the complete Cruel Summer Trilogy: Summer Heat, Summer Seduction & Summer Nights!

Release date: August 1, 2021

Publisher: Van Dyken Enterprises INC

Print pages: 492

Sample

PROLOGUE

Marlon

Senior Year 2014

 

I watched the princess in her glittery tower. My eyes burned with hatred, my anger was barely in check as I pushed the mower back and forth, back and forth.

One line.

Two lines.

Make the lines straight, Marlo.

Don’t get grass on the cement statues, Marlo.

You smell like dirt, Marlo.

I gripped the push mower and let the sound of the engine fuel the blood pumping through my veins as a bead of sweat ran down my right cheek.

The door slammed.

Nya, my foster mom, held out a silver tray, the same one I imagined held the silver spoon that was stuck in the princess’s mouth the day she was born. Mom made her way toward me, her gray hair curled with perspiration around her ears. Her black and white uniform looked crisp and ironed.

She probably did it herself.

The people she worked for didn’t lift a finger. I imagined when they had to shit they just rang a silver bell, you know, to match the tray and spoon, and asked for a butler to carry them to the marble bathroom big enough to fit my entire house plus two cars.

“Do not frown,” Nya scolded in a thick Ukrainian accent. Her hands shook a bit as she poured some lemonade into a tall shiny glass. I stopped mowing and walked over, grabbing the clean glass with my dirty hand and slamming back the cold liquid like it was life.

It dribbled down my chin at about the same time the princess walked out the door and stared.

I hated her stare almost as much as I hated everything else about her, from her polished toenails up her tan legs, past her slender hips and flat stomach, to the bored expression on her face, the perfect ice queen hair, and even to those crystal blue eyes. I hated it all. And my hate wasn’t something that had just appeared. No, my hate had been tended, it had been watered, it had been pruned. My hate was four years of high school. Four years of her and her friends looking down on me. Four years of facing whispers behind my back. Four years of being shoved into lockers. Four years of random Facebook messages saying I should kill myself.

Four. Fucking. Years.

Things should have changed that night.

They didn’t.

And now? Now that I could see freedom, college.

She took the last thing I had.

A drama scholarship to my school of choice.

She had the money.

So why apply?

I had to stay back one more year in order to afford school, I had to stay back and try for the same scholarship next year.

I got to mow lawns.

She opened her mouth like she was going to do something stupid and say sorry.

I shook my head in warning. Like any words wouldn’t be good enough. After all, words from her mouth were just as empty as her head.

She’d had her chance last week.

She’d had her chance at school and looked away.

She sighed and then slowly walked across the lawn I’d just mowed and toward the garage.

The engine to her BMW flared to life.

And then she was gone in a plume of smoke and all my disappointments in life just felt that much worse.

“Try not to judge her too harshly.” Nya patted my shoulder. “Things aren’t always as we believe them to be.”

I looked up at their twenty-two-bedroom house and snorted. “Really? Because from this angle it looks exactly how it’s always looked.”

I swallowed the knot in my throat and handed her back the lemonade.

“Don’t be a blind fool.” Nya slapped me on the back of the head. I winced and rubbed the spot. While she scowled. “We are all human, we all feel pain, we all have emotions. Judge all you want, Marlon, but a shiny house doesn’t mean we automatically have a happy heart.”

Guilt gnawed uncomfortably at my chest. “She got my scholarship.” Not just that, she got my dream. My escape. Self-worth. Identity.

Twenty-two fucking bedrooms.

“One day…” She chuckled under her breath. “One day you’ll grow up, one day you’ll see what I’ve seen ever since the first day we fostered you into our family, ever since you started working at this house.”

“That life isn’t fair?” I wondered out loud.

“The sparkle.” She shrugged. “An old woman notices these things. The way she stares at you, the way you stare at her. One day you’ll regret all this hate. One day she’ll regret all hers.”

“Is that also the day that zombies take over the planet? Cause I think I’m more prepared for that!”

“I will pray for the day to come!” She announced excitedly.

“The zombies?”

“No, you and Ray.” She grinned. “I will pray hard.”

“Please don’t,” I said through clenched teeth.

She started humming.

Great. Just great.

I started the lawnmower again. I would never be the princess’s friend. I would never be anything more than a foster kid mowing her lawn and wishing for a better life.

Hoping for more was useless.

A kid like me knew that.

Abandoned at six.

Owned by the state for another month.

Hope and Disney were one in the same.

A fantasy.

An epic way to let yourself down.

Straight lines, Marlon.

Two lines.

Three lines.

Four lines.

Don’t get grass on the cement, Marlon.

Ray and I? The princess and the pauper?

Unlikely.

I think we’d rather kill each other.

CHAPTER ONE

Ray

Four Years Later

 

I nervously drummed my fingernails against my denim-clad legs.

“I’m going to puke,” I announced.

Nya, my nanny/maid since childhood laughed to herself and pulled the town car around the corner and put it in park. “Just breathe.”

I hadn’t seen her in a year. The closer it seemed I got to her, the more excuses my parents made that she was too busy to see me. I knew the truth. My stomach knotted as I closed my eyes and drew air between my lips, air that smelled like memories, air that tasted like him. Always him.

“Better?”

“No.” I exhaled and opened my eyes. “But it was a nice try.”

“You have nothing to be nervous about.” Nya said with a smile. “It’s summer camp not rocket science. Work for two months and then—”

I tried to keep the tears in.

It didn’t work.

She was all I had.

Thinking about moving to LA without her just felt… wrong. On so many levels. She’d been the one to put Band-Aids over my scrapes when I was little. I still remember the song she used to sing to me when I was a baby and during college would use it as a way to keep my anxiety at bay. The Ukrainian words about protection and love.

Her precious baby.

Only I wasn’t hers.

I was theirs.

My parents.

But thinking about them just put me in a bad mood and I was already stressed out enough as it was. I wanted to do a good job. I wanted to prove I was worthy of drama camp.

And most of all, I wanted to impress the producers, directors, and agents who would be at our camp finale, watching and waiting to see if the counselors were able to put together a show worthy of Hollywood.

Summer Heat, Camp to the Stars wasn’t just a camp.

It was the camp you went to, to get seen.

And it wasn’t just campers.

The counselors also performed in the production.

Twenty-two of them had gone on to win Academy Awards later on in life, several others had won Emmy’s. It was a big deal.

Getting hired had been a nightmare. I half expected them to ask for my first born and a spleen.

“You think too much,” Nya said simply. “Just enjoy your two months. Oh, and could you do me a favor?”

“Sure.” I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached for my brand-new Kate Spade, with the black and white polka dots and splashes of pink. It was a gift from my parents for graduating.

Well, it was the only one I would accept.

Since giving someone a brand-new G Wagon and a trip to Belize seemed like overkill.

Nya handed me a worn blue duffel bag. “Will you drop this off with Marlo?”

My ears started to ring as dread swept through my body. “Marlo? As in your Marlo?”

“Yours too.” She grinned.

Yup, definitely going to puke.

Marlo. The same Marlo that mowed our lawn? The same Marlo half the senior class cheated off of in order to pass calculus?

Marlo. The guy everyone made fun of because they were just that unhappy with their own measly lives.

Marlo.

Marlo, the guy I beat out for a scholarship.

A scholarship I deserved.

A scholarship I needed, since my parents refused to pay for me to major in drama.

It was me or him!

I groaned into my hands.

The same Marlo who saw me for me. Who I touched…

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

You know how people have enemies and then the people you know would drown you in a pool of your own blood if they had the chance? He was the latter. The one person who could ruin my day with a stare. The one person alive that could ruin my life by simply existing. The hate between us was thick.

And four years had probably done nothing but let it fester into this giant angry red boil that refused to pop.

“See you in two months!” Nya said cheerfully.

Wait, she was still here?

What had I been doing that whole time? Oh, right just envisioning this very uncomfortable situation where I’ll most likely start off on the wrong foot because I always did with Marlo. No matter what I did, I earned a judgmental sneer.

Shit.

How many shits was that now?

“Right.” I nodded numbly then opened my door and walked to the back of the car, Nya was out before I could tell her to stay in the driver’s seat. Maybe it was out of habit that she helped me — a huge part of me hoped it was garnered from some love or affection she had for me.

Wishful thinking probably.

“You be good.” She pinched my cheeks; her rouge lipstick made her lips stick out around her paper-thin skin and white long hair. “Make friends and try to enjoy life a little this summer.”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “I’ll get right on that.”

“Good girl.” She turned. “Oh!” Her fingers snapped in the air like she almost forgot to tell me something. “You may not recognize Marlo. He’s filled out a bit, spends his free time in the gym, says it feeds his rage.”

Awesome.

Just. Awesome.

“Rage?”

“Who knows?” She laughed like it was funny.

It wasn’t.

I was pretty sure I knew who said rage was directed at, but maybe he’d taken up hating other people? Dogs? Horses? Maybe another enemy had risen up and taken on the cause!

Maybe I was completely home free!

And exaggerating.

I frowned and waved Nya off as I took my bags and the small duffel down the sidewalk toward the main lodge for registration.

Honestly, four years is a long time to hold a grudge.

So what? Nya said he still managed to start school that same year and was in an even better program than I was at my college! According to her, he was a star, a regular Marlon Brando, considering his name was Marlon and that he’d had glasses and the skinniest body I’d ever seen, I highly doubted the physical comparison was the same, but still.

If my professors one state over even knew about him?

Then he was just fine.

Scholarship, schmolarship.

I was actually feeling better the more I walked.

Maybe it was the cramped car.

Or the emotional trauma of leaving Nya for two months after just reconnecting again after graduation.

I sucked in a breath of pine and dirt and grinned as my heels clicked against the hard surface of the lodge floor. High school kids were lounging everywhere. Immediately, I could see the cliques.

The cool drama kids were all wearing black and drinking lattes. Sigh.

The ones who were forced here by parents were huddled in a corner staring at their phones, probably flirting with the idea of calling 911 for rescue.

And another group of rich kids — like recognizes like — rested lazily across the three leather sofas nearest to the snack bar, wearing aviators and enough cologne or perfume to choke a person.

The registration desk was right behind them.

I quickly made my way over, dropped my bags, and straightened my tank over my leather leggings. I held out my hand to the first available guy with a black shirt that said staff. “Hi, I’m—”

He looked up.

His icy blue eyes locked on mine with such intensity my jaw went a little slack.

He. Was. Beautiful.

His stare was striking, like he was measuring me and found me wanting. His messy brown hair was tucked beneath a backward Yankees baseball cap, and his jaw was so thick and chiseled I wondered if he did one of those weird chin exercises to really pump up the veins in his neck because. Dayum.

He sighed like my breathing was his greatest disappointment — scratch that, my existence.

“Um…” I put my hand down. “I, um, my name’s—”

“Ray, as in you have a ray of sunshine sticking out of your ass, De Lato. Graduated summa cum laude from Carnegie Mellon, you like pedicures, small useless things like spray tans, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you stopped production because you broke a nail, am I missing anything?” He stood and placed his hands against the table. He towered over me by at least six inches.

“Okay I don’t know who the hell you think you are—”

He smiled.

A beautifully cruel straight white toothed smile that had my girly parts doing a hoedown before I could tell them to shut the hell up and fight back. “Interesting.”

I ignored his nice smile and massive body and the muscles contracting near his forearms, and sweet God, who knew triceps could stretch a shirt like that? Not this girl? Where did they make them like this? Iowa? How did I find more? Ones without severe personality flaws and chips on their shoulders like him.

“Look.” I flashed my most confident smile. “I’m new this year. One of the counselors dropped out, and I was able to get in last minute as staff.”

“I’m aware.”

“Oh.” I gulped. “Well, I wasn’t sure, so I just thought—”

“Brax.” Rude hot guy held a packet in the air. “Can you make sure Ray has her schedule and put her in the blue cabin?”

Brax’s eyebrows shot all the way up to his black beanie. His reddish-brown hair curled near his shoulders, and his eyelashes were so long I was envious. He wasn’t as tall or built as rude guy, but he was friendly looking and at least didn’t scowl every time I looked in his direction. “Sure, boss.”

“B-boss?” I just had to repeat.

“Director.” He grinned. “Actually.”

“For the summer?” I gulped.

Brax and the rest of the table snickered.

“Of the entire camp,” he said politely. “I hope you enjoy your time here Ray — I know I for one… can’t wait.”

Brax walked around the table. “Here, let me help you with your bags.”

“Brax, this isn’t the Hilton. She can carry her own damn bags. Be quick about it, I need you both back at HQ for a meeting.”

“On it.” He nodded and strode out of the lodge. I could barely keep up with him as I teetered on my tall high heels.

“So, I don’t know what you did to piss off one of the most cheerful guys I know, but I would figure out a way to fix it and fast,” Brax said in a low tone.

“I wish I knew!” I was out of breath keeping up with him, and then he just stopped and pointed. “Wait, what’s that?”

“Blue cabin. Your home for the next two months.”

“It’s on stilts.” I gulped. “And it looks like it hasn’t been lived in, in—”

“We call it the parent trap cabin because it looks identical to that creepy cabin in the movie where the girls are sent off away from all society and safety.”

I clenched my teeth. “Well that’s… not good.”

“Like I said, whatever you did. Fix it.” He patted me on the back and nodded to the ratty looking screen door that was halfway off its hinges. “We better hurry, wouldn’t want to make it worse.”

How could I make it better or worse if I didn’t even know what I did in the first place?

CHAPTER TWO

Marlon

“That was rude,” Jen said.

I didn’t look up. I knew what was plastered all over her face. Disappointment. I felt it in my soul.

Four years.

I’d spent four years pouring my soul into drama, using it as my therapy, my muse. I ignored all the shit from high school. I honestly thought I was fine.

Completely fine.

And then suddenly she was there.

Wearing the same perfume, some sort of spicy candy scent that had my body involuntarily leaning in for more. And when I inhaled, the memories released right into the air.

With the hate.

With the rage that I thought I’d left on the punching bag. In the gym.

Then she just had to make it worse and smile.

Pretend not to know me.

Hell, maybe she just didn’t recognize me.

I imagined this scenario a hundred times, a thousand times. She’d throw herself at me like every single woman had for the last three years, and then I’d confess who I was while giving her the best orgasm of her life, take her clothes, and leave her to wonder why they always say to be nice to everyone because, hey you never know, maybe the school nerd who mows lawns for a living turns out to be a ten instead of a four.

I ran my hands through my hair and put my baseball hat back on. “She can handle it, trust me, Jen,” was all I said as I grabbed the stack of folders in front of me.

Jen sighed and handed me a green Red Bull and then shook her strawberry blonde hair. “I’m just saying you’re the director this year, you’re the example, the guy we all look to, your staff needs you to be focused, kind, logical, not an emotional train wreck who sees a pretty girl and loses his mind.”

I smirked and then bit down on my lip. “She’s not pretty.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No.”

“On a bender?”

I slapped her hand away. “I wish.”

She scrunched up her nose, her freckles were a dominant and adorable part of her face. I’d always thought of her as more of a sister than anything. We’d worked together at the same camp for the past three years and now that it was almost over with, I almost felt sad that I wouldn’t see her anymore.

Or the rest of my crew.

It was just an unfortunate accident that Darius couldn’t return this year. And since I didn’t do the hiring…

Well here we are!

Damn cruel universe.

“Look, I’m fine. I didn’t get much sleep last night.” I shrugged her off. “The sooner we start the staff meeting the sooner we can get set up for the opening campfire.”

“Yeah.” She glanced around the room. “Those millennials look positively thrilled.”

I counted at least a hundred phones.

“Grab the bucket.” I crossed my arms.

She side-eyed me. “So soon?”

“They look ready to start humping their own cell phones, so yeah, we’re gonna take away technology this soon. They’ll get them back every Saturday for two hours.”

“Harsh. I like it.” Jen winked and grabbed one of the black buckets labeled Hell.

“Listen up!” I yelled over the room. “We have a very strict no-technology policy.” The door swung open revealing Brax and Ray. “And that includes staff. In case of an emergency, find a staff member and we’ll get a call out on a landline. You’re not here to tweet, or post an Insta story, and if I see any Facebook status updates with you doing a peace sign over your bunk partners missing eyebrow there will be hell to pay. We don’t have a lot of rules, but the ones we do have are iron clad. Break one,” I eyed Ray, “and you’re gone.”

Her nostrils flared.

I tried to ignore the way her body had changed.

When we had both gone our separate ways, she had been tall, a bit lanky, and hadn’t quite filled out.

Now she looked like a woman.

Curves in all the right places.

The perfect sun-kissed skin.

And full lips that I remembered wanting to taste the first day I met her.

I quickly looked away. “You’ll get your phones back every Saturday for two hours. Let’s have ’em.”

Groans and cursing followed as Jen passed around the bucket. I was used to complaining, if they didn’t complain or wish death on my head, I’d be worried.

Jen stopped in front of Ray.

I waited for the spoiled princess to defy me, to look me in the eye and jut her chin out. Instead, she gritted her teeth and dropped her phone in the bucket with a light clunk then stared down at her shoes.

In what world did a camp counselor show up in spiky heels that could impale multiple humans at once?

I rolled my eyes as Jen kept passing the bucket. When the last cell phone was confiscated, I rubbed my hands together. “Our welcome barbecue starts in two hours. Get settled in your bunks.” I walked to the center of the room. “Oh, also there’s this thing called nature.” Kids snickered. “Trees. Grass.” I grinned as most the angry expressions left their faces. “And I know this one is really shocking, but there’s, like, this thing called… talking to another human, you know, face to face. We adults like to call it a conversation. Try to have at least one without shitting yourself and you win a prize!”

“A prize?” some random person shouted. “What kind of prize?”

“Oh, we feed you.” I grinned. “At the BBQ. Show up and isolate yourself, and we’ll see how long you last without a hot dog.”

“I’m a burger guy!” He shouted then stepped forward. I shook my head as Jackson, another staff member did a little dance and then winked over at Ray. “But I’ll try to make new friends. I can be very friendly.”

“Wasn’t talking about you.” I rolled my eyes. “All right guys, two hours. If you need help, find a staff member with a black shirt. Dismissed.”

Jackson had the most incredible ability to swagger across a room, really it was an art form. And he did just that, all the way to Ray.

I clenched my fists. Partially out of anger that he would waste any breath on her, and well, another part that I completely denied and would deny until the day I died.

Was jealous.

“Jackson,” I barked the minute he opened his mouth. “We need to get you a shirt.”

“What about Ray?” Brax just had to ask.

“Yeah what about Ray?” Jackson grinned.

Bastard.

“Both of you, follow me.” I crooked my fingers and marched toward the back room. I grabbed Jackson a large and then grinned menacingly as I grabbed Ray a large as well. “Here you go, your new uniforms for the day.”

“Um, do they have any smalls or mediums?” Ray asked in a quiet voice. “It’s totally fine if…” She gulped. Damn it she needed to stop being so pretty and annoying all at once.

I shrugged and crossed my arms. “This is all we have. We can’t cater specifically to everyone’s tastes. Next, you’ll be asking for a track suit or a Starbucks run every morning. It’s camping, not glamping, not spring break. We’re here to make the best damn productions we can. Hopefully, the kids walk away knowing how to navigate the industry. We don’t have time to play dress up.”

Her face fell and then lit up. “No problem. Like I said, just a question.”

Jackson let out a low whistle. “And on that note, Marlo, you need a cold beer? A shot of whiskey? Something to bring that blood pressure down?”

I jerked away from him. “I’m fine.”

“Marlo?” Ray repeated. “Marlo?”

She looked horrified.

“Surprise,” I whispered hoarsely as our eyes locked.

She didn’t look away.

I didn’t either.

I would win this war one way or another.

And then she did the strangest thing, she lowered her head in defeat turned around and walked out of the room, rubbing her cheek as if she had a tear.

But I knew the truth.

Princesses rarely cry.

It’s the paupers that drown in tears.

That drown in hope.

She cried out of not getting her own way.

Guys like me? Cry out of devastation.