The Bad Boy's Crush

#5 - A Pawn

"What the hell was that?" Cooper demanded the moment the cars carrying Chloe and the Hawkin's disappeared from view. He wanted nothing more than to go after her, but the bomb his father had dropped on him could not wait. The families would soon be talking about a closer relationship than just business? Hell his family shouldn't even have been talking business with their sworn enemies in the first place, let alone entangling him in whatever deal his father was willing to indulge in.

"You will not talk to your father with such disrespect!" Geraldine Wright, as usual, jumped to his father's defence.

"Sure mom, why don't we let him ruin my life respectifully too while we are at it." A closer relationship? Cooper couldn't move past that and what the statement meant. He knew his father was one ruthless bastard, but he'd never thought they would trade him like that. He was cattle after all.

"Many would kill to be in your position." Martin roared, his jaw firmly set. "I practically handed you a successful company-"

"Stuff the stupid company, dad!" Cooper raged at his father. "I never asked for any of it and I sure as hell will not be tied to that family." To be tied to one person his entire life? Even if it wasn't Sara Hawkins, the idea of it was absurd and so not him. Besides that, his parents already had him on some sort of leash with their obsession about keeping their family's image picture perfect, being tied to Sara would only make that leash tighter. He could see his freedom slipping away, together with his sanity.

"Sara is such a lovely girl. Anyone would be lucky to have her-"

"Then you have her-"

"Cooper Henry Wright!" His mother snapped, but it was not her sharp tone that got him to shut up.

"I raised you better than that." His father hissed while Cooper fought the lump in his throat that came with the shock of his father laying a hand on him.

"You hit me?" Regret flashed on his father's face, but it was gone just as quickly as it came.

"Come. You and I need to iron out a few things about this partnership with the Hawkins." His father slipped into the house without another word, leaving Cooper glaring at the man instead of following him.

"He didn't mean to-" His mother drew close, but Cooper evaded her touch. "Baby..."

"Save it for your dear husband." He shrugged off his mother's attempt to comfort him. "I'm going out."

"Sweetheart..." Hurt flashed in her eyes but Cooper refused to acknowledge it and ignored all her attempts to keep him from leaving.

Bruce was already waiting by Cooper's open car door just like always. In times like these Cooper couldn't help but wonder if his guard possessed a sixth sense that allowed him to tell how every argument with his parents would end. "Get me to a party. I don't care where." He needed a distraction.

His guard moved without saying a word, but Cooper knew it wouldn't stay that way for very long. "Why do you insist on pissing him off?" Bruce barely waited for them to drive out of the towering steel gates to his home before pinning him with a raised brow in the rearview morror.

"Because he insists on pissing me off!" Cooper wanted to hit something as Bruce sped away from his home.

"I can bet you a thousand bucks that your father did not intend to do...that or make his plans of marrying you off known. At least not today." Bruce kept eyeing him from his rearview mirror, his demeanor calm as usual.

"If you are going to defend him like my mother does, I'm happy to drive myself." Cooper scowled.

"Just think about it..." Bruce ignored his scowl, his gaze fixed on the road ahead, but thinking was definitely not something Cooper wanted to do right now, so he poured himself a drink as Bruce rumbled on. "Martin is not impulsive and whatever he'd said in there had impulse written all over it. He would not have risked you blowing up in front of the Hawkins." And Cooper would have, if only he hadn't been so distracted by Chloe. What the hell had happened to her? Six months certainly weren't enough to turn her into this smoking hot vision. Argh, and now the kiss he'd stolen six months ago would not be the only thing keeping him awake at night.

"This is something that occured to him right there and then."

"What are you talking about?" Cooper frowned. "Do you know something I don't?"

"You tell me?"

"You know they tell me nothing." Apart from making demands on him, his parents kept him in the dark until they needed to move him like a pawn.

"Maybe that is something you should learn from them."

"I don't intend to be anything like the bastard." Cooper scowled. Being a spitting image of his father was enough torment as it stood, he had no intentions of turning out like him. The idea had already haunted him for years. It was the whole reason he'd decided to stay as far away from him as possible. Being at Blackwood High had given him the freedom from his father's shadow. It was a damned shame it ended sooner than he would have liked.

"I meant you should have done the same with Miss Chloe. You practically put Martin's target on that poor girl's back."

"What are you talking about? I did no such thing." The idea that his father would take an interest in Chloe, for whatever reason put Cooper on edge. It shouldn't have, but it did.

"Maybe it was not intentional, but your whole display when you saw her, sold you and her out."

"Oh, crap!" Cooper grimaced. In his defence though, she'd caught him off guard. "Can I get anything stronger than this?"

Bruce only offered a subtle shake of his head, much to Cooper's annoyance."You are not entirely to blame though."

"And why is that?" Cooper grouched.

"I can tell she might not like her future boss. At least not after today." Which meant Chloe did feel something for him after all if she did not like Sara. The thought of it brought on his smirk. The chase was so on!