Villain, page 1
VILLAIN
NATASHA PRESTON
CONTENTS
Books by Natasha Preston
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Keep in touch
BOOKS BY NATASHA PRESTON
Silence Series
Silence
Broken Silence
Players, Bumps and Cocktail Sausages
Chance Series
Second Chance
Our Chance
THE ONE SERIES (standalone)
Waking up in Vegas
Just Like the Movies
Read My Mind
Stand-alones
Save Me
With the Band
Reliving Fate
Lie to Me
After the End
Villain
Young Adult Thrillers
The Cellar
Awake
The Cabin
You Will Be Mine
The Lost
The Twin
The Lake
The Fear
The Island
Copyright © 2023 by Natasha Preston
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at www.natashapreston.com
Cover Designer: LJ Designs
Editing and proofreading by Vicki James: www.vickijamesbooks.com
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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CHAPTER ONE
There’s nothing quite like having to ask the Devil himself for a favour.
A simple ride from uni to my house shouldn’t be difficult for him since he attends the same uni and lives next door to me. It’s a reasonable request, and one I would be happy to do for my neighbour if I owned a car. In fact, I’m the kind of person who would offer the lift.
This should be easy.
Right now, though, it feels like the most challenging task imaginable because he’s the most challenging person imaginable.
I try to ignore the anxiety clawing at my stomach as I watch him laughing with a friend. It takes a lot to psyche myself up to approach him. He’s the last person I want to ask for anything, and if it wasn’t currently pouring with rain outside, I would happily walk.
Hell, I’d even consider crawling instead of this.
Having no money sucks, but at least not being able to afford a car keeps me in shape. That’s what I tell myself every time I have to trudge home in the rain, with my long hair sticking to my back, and my make-up running down my face.
It’s not an attractive look.
I bet if Casper agrees it will only be so he can rub it in my face later. That’s definitely what he’ll do. I will forever be in his debt, and he won’t call on me to repay it. He will probably leave me one down for the rest of my life.
He’ll forever be my saviour. I can see his smug expression already.
I’m talking myself out of this. It’s better to get soaked.
I’m waterproof, after all.
His booming laughter brings me back to the present. Those clear blue eyes ringed with a stormy grey band are stunning, and they shine when he smiles. It’s incredibly unfair that eyes like that belong to a bastard like him.
I’ve hated him for a long time—since freshers’ week at uni—but my God, he’s on my mind far too often. I don’t know why he bothers me so much. Perhaps because he lives next door and I can’t escape him. Perhaps because he seems to make it his life’s mission to make me feel about two feet tall.
Either way, Casper Hart is evil, and I really, really despise him.
I know what you’re thinking. His name is the same as that cute little ghost’s. Who names their kid Casper after the movie aired? His rich lawyer parents, apparently. Maybe they did it so he would grow up tough—it’s unclear. Either way, they were so off the mark. He’s not friendly.
A ghost he is not. A poltergeist, perhaps…
His surname is another joke. I’m not sure he even has a heart.
It will be a cold day in Hell before I admit that he pulls off his name. It suits him. I like it. A fact that I’ll take to the grave.
I take a step towards him and immediately correct it by stepping to the side and almost bumping into a group of people headed for the door.
“Sorry,” I mutter when they tut at me.
What are you doing?
Is this really worth the hassle I’m going to get? The only reason I’m considering asking him is because I don’t want my books to get soaked. After I finish every shift at the library, I check out the new books. I’m positive there’s some law about never leaving a library or book shop empty-handed.
Maybe Casper won’t be a dick about it. We’ve barely spoken this last week, so he hasn’t had much chance to get pissed off with… whatever it is about me that pisses him off so thoroughly.
If I knew what that was, I’d ramp it up.
I take a breath and wring my hands. Right, I’m going to ask him. His house is attached to mine. It’s not like he’d be going out of his way especially for me.
Unfortunately, from the second year of uni we had to find somewhere off campus to live, and the semi-detached house I live in is owned by the same guy who is raking it in by renting to students like me.
I’ve lived next door to Casper and his two housemates Reggie and Marvin – who are decent people – for a year and a half now.
It gets worse because Casper and I also happen to share a bedroom wall.
Want to know how I learnt that? I hear his name being cried out by random women, though I’m unsure if it’s during their climax or their murder.
Neither scenario would shock me.
I take another step, feeling braver and perhaps a bit sick, but I swallow that down and carry on. Screw it, I’m just going to ask, and if he says no, I’ll sneak into his house and cut his pretty, silky black hair in his sleep.
Casper notices me immediately, as if he has me on a radar. His icy eyes laser through me, trailing up my body before finally finding my face. If they were actual lasers, I would be in big trouble right now.
“Ainsley, what an interesting look,” he says, tilting his head like he’s a dastardly villain.
I’ll die before I admit that he’s easily the hottest man I have ever seen. That strong jawline, those sharp cheekbones, and his toned to hell body. He’s proof that there’s no God. No one would give those looks to a man who spends every second of his days actively thinking of ways to ruin other peoples’ lives.
I regret not changing after spilling coffee on my hoodie during my shift.
Casper looks me over again, even slower this time. We’re under the canopy that joins the library and gym together, but he’s still getting wet as the rain bounces back off the ground. His car is behind him, and he has his gym bag slung over his shoulder.
The friend he was talking to walks off as I approach, no longer holding Casper’s attention. They can have it back; this was a mistake.
I might as well be naked as he undresses me with his gaze, only this time he doesn’t look quite as disgusted as usual. Heat creeps up my neck, but I don’t allow myself to shy away. He will not win.
“Not all of us care what other people think, Casper,” I say when my voice finally decides to work again.
He smiles—damn those lips—but there is nothing friendly about it. He runs a hand through his damp hair. “You certainly don’t.”
My stomach tightens in anger. Nope, I’d rather get wet.
“Well, it was nice talking to you as usual,” I say.
“What do you want?”
“Sorry?”
“You came over to me.” He leans against his car, letting the rain cascade down his body.
That’s hot.
He’s parked in a spot nobody is supposed to use. If he gets fined, his bank balance wouldn’t even flinch thanks to both Mummy and Daddy being lawyers.
“I was walking home,” I eventually say.
“Through me?”
There’s a ghost joke in there somewhere, but I’m better than that.
“Your car is parked in the way. Again.”
“You’re an intelligent woman. I’m certain you can find a way to walk around it,” he says, not caring that rain is now pouring down his face. His hair, longer on top, covers half of his eyes.
“I just saw a woman you haven’t slept with yet walking into the library. Thought you might have chased her before I reached you.”
His arrogant half smirk creates a dimple in his cheek. I try not to stare at it. “Actually, I have slept with her.”
Gross. I can’t believe I ever thought about asking him for a lift home.
“Well, that’s great for you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll let you and your herpes go find new prey.”
“You are so transparent, Ainsley. Walking around here like you’re better than everyone else. The poor girl with her scholarships and loans.”
I honestly couldn’t care less what he thinks of me, and I’m not ashamed of where I’m from. This university would have been out of my price range without the scholarship and loans, but he’s chatting like I eat out of bins and sleep with my lecturer.
“I might not be rich, Casper, but at least I get to choose my future. How long until you go to work at your daddy’s law firm? I’m sure falling in line will be so much fun.”
I’ve turned into a raging bitch, too. I hate that he does this to me. He only took five days to break me. I was civil up until that point. Now I just want to beat him over the head with my words and a mace every time I see him.
“And what’s in your future? Working in a greasy café and having boring sex with your mechanic husband.” His eye twitches, but I don’t know if that’s due to him regretting his words or the water rolling down his face.
My uncle, the man who stepped up to raise me, is a mechanic. Casper is such an ignorant prick.
I ball my hands into fists, but I won’t use them and give him the satisfaction of knowing how much his words get to me.
He can say what he wants about me, but not my family.
“Still, that’s much better than what your future wife has in store, waiting for you to come home from a soul-destroying day playing your father, only to realise the minute you step through the door that she married the Devil. Wait, what am I saying? You don’t have a soul.”
He watches me with dead, bored eyes. “Have you finished?”
I wish I’d never started. I get sucked in every time he looks at me with his cocky expression and air of superiority. I don’t care how much money someone has. I’m not intimidated because his parents are scary, high-profile lawyers, representing even richer, shady people.
Casper gets away with a lot because of who his parents are. People bend the rules and give in to him. Whatever he wants, he gets. It drives me insane.
“I’m sorry, can you repeat what you were saying? I didn’t hear you over the yawning,” I say.
I’ve turned juvenile again and need to bring myself back.
Before Casper can respond, I hold my palm up to silence him. “Enough. I don’t even know why I thought asking you for anything would be a good idea. Forget it.”
“Wait.” He pushes himself off his car and leans closer, his eyes filling with some sort of life. “What were you going to ask me?”
He’s like those evil people in Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep. Instead of draining the ‘gift’ from children, he drains my sanity. It seems to be the only thing he enjoys.
I never hear him in the bedroom, so he can’t be that into the women he sleeps with. He never calls out their names.
Could be because he doesn’t know them.
Rain begins to pour down like a waterfall, bouncing off his shoulders, but he’s so fixed on me that he doesn’t flinch. It’s like he doesn’t even notice it.
“I was going to ask if you’ve taken all your meds today, but I can see that you haven’t,” I say.
“You want me to drive you home.”
It’s a calculated guess. We’re neighbours, and the rain’s coming down like a hurricane.
“I’d rather get picked up hitchhiking by a serial killer.”
He shrugs. “I know of some great legal representation for this serial killer. I’ll even work pro bono.”
“You don’t have a licence to practice yet, prick,” I mutter and walk away from him… straight into the rainstorm. Gritting my teeth, I seethe as I walk around his pretentious dark grey Porsche, managing to keep it together enough to not kick a tyre.
He doesn’t say anything else, but I feel the daggers he’s glaring into my back as if he’s actually taking a breadknife to my spine.
Walking in the pelting rain is much more pleasant than being around Casper. Hell, walking in bleach would be. The water washes away my momentary lapse in judgement. As if I thought it was a good idea to ask anything of him.
Never again.
I shiver against the chilly spring wind, wiping water from my face only to have it back again the next second. The journey home only takes about fifteen minutes because there’s a cut through on a housing estate that separates the city centre from the outskirts.
When I get home, I’ll have to assess the damage to my books and notes from my lectures. It will be far less stressful to write everything again than it is to spend five minutes in Casper’s company, anyway.
I wish there was something in my degree I could use to take him down, but I’m not sure how event management will be helpful. One day, he’ll see that I’m working for a top firm, planning sporting ceremonies like the World Cup or the Olympics.
I want to work on festivals, too. I’ll be in charge and deny him entry to everything. That’s if he even listens to music. I’m sure he listens to recordings of his victims screaming right before their deaths. Okay, I know he listens to music because I hear it through the wall often enough.
Bellend.
Up ahead is a man jogging to a car. I don’t recognise him, and my mind instantly believes he’s the robber who’s been breaking into houses in the area recently. I’m about to reach for my phone when someone opens a door and shouts something to him. He raises his hand and hops into his car.
Not the burglar.
The walk home has taken me exactly thirteen soaked minutes. By the time I walk up the path, the cold has seeped into my bones, my trainers squelch, and my hair is plastered to my face.
Casper’s car sits in his drive. The obnoxious penis enlargement. I hate him. I don’t allow myself to look up in case I see him watching me from the window.
I let myself in and kick off my drenched shoes.
My roommates Freya and Imani aren’t home as they both have a late study class today. Our schedules are off, but theirs align a bit more. I don’t mind. It’s nice to have the house to myself sometimes.
Shivering, I drop my bag onto the mat and take out my books. The radiator in the hallway is warm, so I set my books underneath it and strip out of my clothes, peeling them off like a second skin. The sensation makes my arms and legs breakout in goosebumps.
After popping my stuff in the washing machine, I dash upstairs, naked, into the bathroom.
I take a quick shower, spend fifteen minutes wrapped in my biggest towel because I can’t be bothered to move, then get into my cosiest sweats. I’m finally warm and dry and can forget about the walk home. It makes my fitness tracker look much better, anyway.
Screw Casper. I’m getting a big glass of my cheap wine to wash away the humiliation of thinking I should and could ask him for a favour. I might even waste the last of my wages from the library on Chinese food. Pay day is in a few days, anyway. I can make it.
As I put my phone on charge in my room, I hear him. Or rather his music—no screeching from murder victims tonight—vibrating against my wall. Don’t get me wrong, I like listening to music with the volume up, too, but that’s my music.
