The Dream Summer

I’m Bianca, the queen bee of Dream Prep Academy. The popular girl. The daughter of a billionaire. I’m ready for a dream summer after my senior year. But before I graduate, I prank the guy who humiliated me our freshman year. The one guy I can’t stand.

Case is the school prankster, and he’s about to get a taste of his own medicine. Except the prank backfires, and Case and I become the owners of a private island with a rundown house. Our punishment is to spend the summer fixing up the house. We need to sell it and earn back what we owe my dad.

It’s not my dream summer as we stay in a tiny cabin and pranks abound. We make a bet, and if someone leaves the island, the winner keeps the profit. But as house walls are torn down, so are the walls between us. We start to have fun, and the summer turns into something more. But I can’t help wondering if Case is playing me like he did our freshman year. Or is this the start of something wonderful?

The Dream Summer is a standalone sweet romance in the Dream Prep Academy series. It’s perfect for fans of classic romcoms, enemy to lover romances, he falls first stories, and summer love. Start dreaming today with the swoony and sweet characters of Dream Prep Academy.

Senior prom should be the crowning glory of my school year. The epic end to my rule at this school. The final notch of accolades bestowed upon me.

Prom queen.

But the thing is…I no longer want it.

I may be the most popular girl at Dream Prep Academy and classmates vie for the chance to be near me. I may wear an exclusive dress by a famous designer and sparkle with jewelry which should have its own security guard. I may be the daughter of a billionaire. But none of that means I should be prom queen.

“Your Dream Prep Academy senior prom queen is…” Ms. Harnett, the drama teacher, pauses for effect.
I curl my toes in my expensive heels and my chest tightens. It was humiliating to not be crowned homecoming queen at the beginning of the year when I thought it was guaranteed, but it’ll be even more humiliating to be prom queen. It’ll be pity votes because I wasn’t voted homecoming queen.

I also don’t have a date for prom. It’s not like I didn’t have options. Plenty of guys wanted to ask me, but only a couple were brave enough to try. But I didn’t want an evening of forced conversation and awkward dancing. Now classmates say attending prom dateless is the new trend, started by me.

It’s humiliating.

I no longer desire to be queen. But I should want to be prom queen…shouldn’t I?

After all, I am -

“Bianca Jameson,” Ms. Harnett loudly exclaims.

I’m humiliated.

But I will still face the music. I have a role to play. Everyone expects me to be the queen bee of the school, the popular girl, the head cheerleader, the hot girl every guy wants to date, the billionaire’s daughter, and now - senior prom queen. I straighten my shoulders, plaster on a fake smile, grip the skirt of my dress in my hands, and climb the stairs to the stage in the glamorous white party tent erected on the Dream Prep Academy lawn.

Rumor, gossip, and attention tend to follow in my wake. I will deliver and not let my classmates down. Their queen has arrived.

“Congratulations,” Ms. Harnett says with a wide smile.
Ms. Harnett places the delicate tiara on my head, and I face my senior classmates as they applaud. They force the clapping as much as I force my smile. I should have ditched prom, but on the bright side, it can’t get any worse than this.

“You get to crown the king.” Ms. Harnett hands over a large golden crown.

Distracted, I examine the king’s crown as Ms. Harnett continues with the prom festivities. It’s not a spraypainted cardboard crown or a gaudy one with furry trim. It’s a nice-looking metal crown. Dream Prep Academy does not skimp on the senior prom, especially when the students’ families have spent a fortune the last seven years for their children to attend the most exclusive prep school in the nation. I rub my fingers over the shiny metal wishing I were anywhere but here. I’d even take a deserted island. A deserted island with my nemesis.

“And your Dream Prep Academy senior prom king is…”

While there’s another pause for suspense, I scan the crowd below me. The guy I dated nearly all junior year, Jayden, stands with his girlfriend, Linnea, at the edge of the crowd. Jayden and I were the “it” couple. The head cheerleader and star soccer player. The daughter of a billionaire and the son of a professional basketball player. We were the epitome of a high school couple.
Jayden and Linnea don’t have the same “wow” factor as a couple, but they are smitten with each other. I can at least take some joy in knowing my breakup with Jayden brought them together. Jayden hated me for a long time after I broke up with him, but Linnea helped encourage him to forgive me. I can’t say my mom is pleased I’m friends with my ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend. She also wasn’t pleased I broke up with Jayden, but it wasn’t fair to stay with him when I didn’t love him.
My eyes land on someone who displeases me far more than I’ve been displeasing my mom lately.

“Case Palmer,” Ms. Harnett announces.

“Wait.” I jerk my chin to Ms. Harnett. “Who?”

My question is drowned in the cheers and applause from the crowd. They’re ecstatic Case is prom king. I’m not. I thought it was humiliating to be named prom queen, but to have Case named prom king alongside of me is the worst.