Hannah lay on her bed wondering what the hell she’d done wrong? The ride home with Cody had been awkward and silent. After he fled from the fitting room like he discovered she had smallpox, she stumbled around trying to find her clothes amongst the expensive apparel littering the floor. It didn’t seem right to leave the gorgeous fabrics lying around so Hannah did her best to hang them back up.

A million thoughts had raced through her mind as she tidied up the fitting room. The most prevalent one was that kissing her was probably some sort of cruel and unusual form of punishment for Cody. He was used to beautiful, well-practiced girls. Maybe asking him to be her practice boyfriend wasn’t fair. He owed her, but she was starting to feel like she was taking things too far. With how fast he’d bolted she was worried she was causing him to be physically ill.

The odd thing was, before he’d run out, she had felt something. Kissing him didn’t seem like practice at all. It felt . . . right. More than right, it was amazing. Hannah had never experienced such a rush of nervous excitement before.

She touched her lips at the memory of their kiss and sighed. She was being stupid. She couldn’t possibly have felt anything for Cody. That’s why she’d picked him. He was safe. She’d never fall for someone as screwed up as he was. And she was certain he didn’t feel anything for her. He’d barely said two words the whole car ride home. He was already up the stairs to his massive house when she shouted, “pick you up tomorrow.”

His only response was a wave. He didn’t even bother to look back at her.

“Ugh! What a jerk!”

Hannah sat up and punched her pillow, frustrated that her plan was falling apart because Cody was being a flake. All he’d done was force feed her caffeine, subject her to torturous primping, make her take her clothes off, tell her she needed new ones and then left without letting her get any. She reminded herself she didn’t pick him for his charm. She was just going to have to suck it up and try harder. She wasn’t going to let Cody Matthews stand in the way of her perfect high school résumé.

* * *

Dressed in her favorite oversized gray sweatshirt from Brown and plaid pajama bottoms, Hannah hunched in front of her computer screen. She was studying graduation speeches again when she heard the doorbell ring. She didn’t flinch. She knew her father would answer. He was a night owl. Running his own tech company allowed him to work from home, but that meant he pretty much worked 24/7.

Hannah glanced at the clock. Odd. Who would be stopping by so late? It was 10 pm. Way past her bedtime! But she was too restless to sleep. Stupid vanilla latte!

The knock at her door startled her.

“Hannah?” Her father’s voice called softly in the hallway. “Are you awake?”

She strode to the door and creaked it open. “I’m up. What’s going on, Dad?”

“A currier just delivered a bunch of bags for you,” he said holding up six gigantic silver bags. Each one with the words, Neiman Marcus, printed on the side. “There’s more downstairs.”

“Oh!” Hannah’s heart skipped as she grabbed the bags from her father.

Cody came through!

“Thanks.” Hannah quickly stashed the bags in her room and ran down to the foyer with her father trailing behind her. She spotted three more Neiman Marcus bags, half a dozen garment bags and a short, wide white bag with the words LA PERLA stamped on the side in bold silver letters. There was an envelope attached to the handle with her name on it.

“What is all of this for?” her father asked.

“School project,” she snapped, scooping up the bags and running back up to her bedroom.

Hannah locked the door and breathlessly looked at the sea of department store bags covering her floor. Where to start? She went to the LA PERLA bag first since she was most curious about the note. Maybe Cody was apologizing for running out on her. Maybe he really was sick. Oh god, maybe it was too hard for him to be around all the champagne. There was a bottle on ice in her fitting room. She’d been drinking it. Did she taste like champagne when she kissed him?

She fumbled with the envelope praying she hadn’t inadvertently sent him back to rehab.

‘To conquer the world.’ - C

Hannah flipped the card over and peered into the empty envelope, but that was it. There was nothing else. She unwrapped the white tissue paper inside and pulled out an extremely lacey, extremely see-through, sexy black bra. Hannah’s cheeks burned scarlet when she pulled out the matching panties—thongs of course. The bag was full of six more identical sets in white, pale blue, soft pink, nude, red and gray.

“Holy hell!” Hannah exclaimed when she caught the price tag on the skimpy panties. She scanned the rest of the lingerie and did a quick calculation. She gasped out loud. There was over $5000 in underwear sprawled out on her bed!

“This is insane,” she whispered.

She pawed through the rest of the bags, pulling out the lavish items and carefully laying them on her bed. Cody purchased every item from the fitting room! It was a small fortune. It would cover her entire tuition to Brown—not that she was paying to go there. She’d never be able to afford Brown if she hadn’t gotten a full scholarship. But that wasn’t the point. It was the principle. It made no sense to Hannah to spend that kind of money on clothes! No wonder it was impossible to reach Golden status at Stanton. If it required shopping habits like this there was no way Hannah would ever earn a way in on her own.

As dedicated as she was to her cause, Hannah was starting to feel uncomfortable with her and Cody’s arrangement. At this rate, she was going to be the one who owed him.

“Not going to happen,” she muttered grabbing her phone. She tapped out a quick text to Cody and hit send.

GOT THE BAGS. WAY TOO MUCH. I’M SENDING THEM BACK. – HANNAH

A bubble appeared on her screen. Cody was texting back.

RULE #2. LESSON #3. – CODY

“He can shove his ridiculous rules,” Hannah muttered hitting the call button.

Cody answered on the first ring. “Hello, doll face.”

“Cody, they’re going back. All that stuff cost way too much money. I’m not comfortable with it.”

“So you’re okay with blackmail, but you draw the line at expensive apparel?” he mocked.

“It’s absurd to spend that much money on clothes! And I can by my own underwear, thank you very much.”

“Oh give it a rest, Hannah. You go to Stanton for Christ sake. You obviously have the means, so stop pretending to be offended by wealth. I’m over the whole innocent bit. And everyone knows you can’t return lingerie, so deal with it.”

Hannah was speechless.

“Hell-o?” Cody taunted when she didn’t reply. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” was all she could manage.

“Good. Then I expect to see you dressed accordingly tomorrow morning and put your game face on so we can get this over as quickly as possible.”

Click.

Hannah sat in stunned silence after Cody hung up on her. She wasn’t used to being caught off guard. But what had she expected? No one knew she attended Stanton Prep for free. Her father could never afford the steep tuition, but he wanted the best for her and always led by example. She still remembered the day he’d told her that he’d enrolled her in Stanton. “If you want something, you make it happen,” he’d said.

When she attended her interview with the dean she’d found out the only way she’d been allowed to attend Stanton was because her father donated his company’s software for the entire campus so she could attend for free. She felt horrible, knowing that he was giving away his hard work for free. Plus, it made her feel like an intruder. Even as a sixth grader, she knew that if her pauper status got around at Stanton she’d never fit in. So she kept to herself, focused on academics and made sure no one ever learned her secret.

Hearing Cody say she had money should have eased her nerves. It was further proof that she’d successfully managed to survive Stanton without anyone knowing she couldn’t afford to be there. So why was it bothering her so much? It wasn’t so much Cody’s statement, but the way he’d said it. Implying that because she had money that she didn’t need to value it. She hated the venomous entitlement in his voice.

Hannah squared her shoulders and walked to her closet to make room for her new wardrobe. What’s done was done, she thought. If Cody was going to be pigheaded and arrogant she wasn’t going to let the clothes go to waste. She’d call it an investment in her future. And a reminder to not turn into a Golden in her quest to conquer them.

She folded Cody’s note and put it in her desk drawer, before hopping into bed.

“To conquer the world, indeed,” she grumbled switching off the light.