Summer Heat

By Rachel Van Dyken

#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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rachel Van Dyken
• Release date: Jul 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781732142831

Rachel Van Dyken

Rachel Van Dyken is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author of regency and contemporary romances. When she's not writing you can find her drinking coffee at Starbucks and plotting her next book while watching The Bachelor.She keeps her home in Idaho with her Husband and their snoring Boxer, Sir Winston Churchill. She loves to hear from readers! You can follow her writing journey at www.rachelvandykenauthor.com

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Summer Heat

Cruel Summer, Book 1

by Rachel Van Dyken

Copyright © 2018 RACHEL VAN DYKEN

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

SUMMER HEAT

Copyright © 2018 RACHEL VAN DYKEN

ISBN-13: 978-1-7321428-3-1

Cover Design by Jena Brignola

Formatting by Jill Sava, Love Affair With Fiction

Table of Contents

Front Matter

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

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Acknowledgments

About The Author

To hot summer nights, to summer camps, first loves, loves lost, and second chances. Cheers.

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