GOOD GIRL COMPLEX, a new adult contemporary romance from New York Times Bestselling Author, Elle Kennedy, is available now! Scroll down for an excerpt!
She does everything right. So what could go wrong?
She does everything right. So what could go wrong?
Mackenzie “Mac” Cabot is a people pleaser. Her demanding parents. Her prep school friends. Her long-time boyfriend. It’s exhausting, really, always following the rules. All she wants to do is focus on growing her internet business, but first she must get a college degree at her parents’ insistence. That means moving to the beachside town of Avalon Bay, a community made up of locals and the wealthy students of Garnet College.
Twenty-year-old Mac has had plenty of practice suppressing her wilder impulses, but when she meets local bad boy Cooper Hartley, that ability is suddenly tested. Cooper is rough around the edges. Raw. Candid. A threat to her ordered existence. Their friendship soon becomes the realest thing in her life.
Despite his disdain for the trust-fund kids he sees coming and going from his town, Cooper soon realizes Mac isn’t just another rich clone and falls for her. Hard. But as Mac finally starts feeling accepted by Cooper and his friends, the secret he’s been keeping from her threatens the only place she’s ever felt at home.
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EXCERPT:
She’s here.
Her face is unmistakable. And holy hell, she was good-looking in photos but a total knockout in person. The kind of girl who sticks out in a crowd. Stunning, with long dark hair and piercing eyes that shine under the lights from the stage. Even at a distance, she’s got an effortless cool about her, an aura of confidence. In a white T-shirt knotted at her waist and a pair of jeans, she stands out for not trying too hard.
All that would be enough to capture my attention even if she didn’t have a killer body. But she has that too—impossibly long legs, a full rack, a round bottom. She’s the girl my daydreams daydream about.
“That her?” Alana leans in to follow my gaze to where Preston Kincaid’s girlfriend is sitting. “She’s better looking in person.”
I know.
“Quick smoke while the next band sets up?” suggests our friend Tate. He rises from the table, dragging a hand through his messy blond hair.
“Nah, we’re staying here,” Alana answers for us.
He quirks a brow at me. “Coop?”
Once again, Alana is my mouthpiece. “Cooper is cutting back on the cancer sticks.” She waves a hand. “You guys go on out.”
Shrugging, Tate wanders off, tailed by Wyatt and Wyatt’s girlfriend Ren. The moment they’re gone, Alana turns her gaze on me.
“Lemme hear it,” she orders.
“Hear what?”
“Your game. Pitch some lines.” She flips her hair and props her chin in her hands, giving me sarcastic doe eyes.
“Fuck off.” I don’t need a pickup coach.
“You need a plan,” she insists. Thing about Alana, when she gets her claws into something, she tends to take over. “You can’t just go over and drop your dick in her lap.”
“Yes, thank you, I’m aware.” I drain the last of my beer as I get up from the table.
Alana stops me, pulls the sleeves of my black Henley down and runs her hands through my hair.
“What’s that for?” I grumble.
“Best foot forward,” she says. “Just in case she’s a prude. Tattoos scare off the prudes.” Leaning back, she takes a final appraising glance before shooing me with her hand. “You’re done. Go forth and conquer.”
This is the problem with having girl friends.
Before I approach my mark’s table, I take a quick scan of the room to make sure Kincaid isn’t lurking somewhere. Not that I have any qualms about a rematch. Getting into a bar fight isn’t part of the plan, though. This’ll work best if I can swoop in there undetected until it’s too late for him to intervene. Win her over before he even knows the enemy is inside the gates.
Satisfied that she’s flying sans-boyfriend tonight, I walk up to her table. With her face glued to her phone, she doesn’t notice me until I tap her on the arm.
“Hey,” I say, bending my head toward her so she can hear me over the music from the loudspeaker. “You using this stool?”
“No.” She doesn’t lift her attention from the lit screen. “Go ahead.” When I sit, her head jerks up. “Oh. Figured you’d just take the stool to another table. But okay.”
“Settle a bet for me,” I say, leaning in closer. She smells good, like vanilla and citrus. So good I almost forget why I’m here. That she doesn’t pull away or throw a drink in my face is a good start.
“Uh . . . what sort of bet?” There’s a flicker of hostility in her eyes before her expression softens. When she rakes her gaze over me, I know I’ve got her intrigued.
“What if I told you, an hour from now, you’d be leaving this bar with me.”
“I’d say I admire your hustle, but you’d be better off aiming that arrow at another target.”
“So we have a wager then.” Holding her gaze, I offer my hand to shake on it. I find the best way to truly know someone is to push and see if they push back. Wind them up and let them go.
“I have a boyfriend,” she says flatly, ignoring my hand. “You’ve already lost.”
I meet her eyes. Insolently. “I didn’t ask about your boyfriend.”
For a moment she’s taken aback. Of course she is, because no one talks to her that way. Certainly not her dumbass boyfriend. Chicks like her are used to parents doting on their every desire and servants waiting on them hand-and-foot. And as the notion of me settles into her mind, I see the moment she decides I’m more interesting than whatever was on her phone.
She puts it to sleep and pushes it away.
So fucking predictable. Every rich girl from a good family wonders what it’s like to be with the guy from the wrong side of the gilded gates. It’s the closest thing to a thrill they’ll ever have.
“Is this a gag?” She looks around. “Did Bonnie put you up to this?”
“I don’t know any Bonnie. I’m Cooper.”
“Mackenzie,” she replies with a furrowed brow, still spinning her wheels wondering what the catch is. “But I really do have a boyfriend.”
“You keep saying that.”
This time when I lean in, she doesn’t back away. The gap between us falls to a few inches, the air between us growing thinner.
“In most of the civilized world,” she says slowly, “that matters.”
“And here I’m looking around, and I don’t see this guy you’re so concerned about.”
Her face is incredulous, if a bit amused. She knows exactly how hot she is and is used to men chasing after her. Yet I sense her unease. I throw her off-kilter. Which tells me she’s thinking about it. I’ve met countless girls like her, slept with a few of them, and right now, the farfetched fantasies and what-ifs are spiraling through her pretty head.
“I’m with my roommate tonight.” There’s still fight in her voice, the resolve to hold her ground, or at least appear to do so. This is a woman who’s never played the easy target. “It’s a girls’ thing.”
“Yeah, real wild night you’re having,” I drawl, gesturing at her glass of water. “Someone’s got a good girl complex, huh?”
“I’m dying to find out how insulting me is going to win you this bet.”
“Stick around and find out.”
She holds up her water. “This is called being a good friend. I’ve already met my alcohol quota of two drinks.”
“Whatever you say, princess.”
She twirls the straw in her glass. “I’m trying to watch out for my roommate tonight.”
“What if I thought you looked lonely?”
She cocks her head, eyes narrowing. I can see the gears working in her mind, analyzing me. “Why would I be lonely?”
“Let’s cut the bullshit.”
She nods with a smirk. “Yes, let’s.”
“You’re an attractive woman alone in a crowded bar with your face glued to your phone because there’s somewhere else you’d rather be. And wherever that place is, there’s someone who’s having fun without you. Yet you’re sitting here wearing your boredom as a badge of loyalty, with some misguided notion that being miserable proves what a good person you are. So, yeah, I think you’re lonely. I think you’re so desperate for a good time you’re secretly glad I walked over here. In the deepest, darkest part of your brain, you want me to give you a reason to misbehave.”
Mackenzie doesn’t answer. In the crackle of energy building in the tight space between us, I watch the indecision warring behind her eyes. She considers everything I just said, stabbing the straw into her glass of ice water.
If she’s going to tell me to get lost, this is it. I’ve called her out and anything less than shutting me down is an admission that I’m at least a little right. But if she doesn’t shut me down, then the path ahead of her is unmarked. There are no rules, and that’s dangerous territory for someone whose whole world is mapped out for them from birth. Being rich means never having to think for yourself.
If she chooses to follow me, it only gets less predictable from here.
“Alright,” she says finally. “I’ll take that bet.” I can tell she’s still skeptical of my motivations, but she’s intrigued. “But if you think this ends with getting me in bed, you might as well pay up now.”
“Right. Wouldn’t want to tempt you with a good time.”
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