"Mom!" I yell from my bedroom, even though I know she hates it when I do that, but I don't have time to run downstairs and then come all the way back up again. Classes start in fifteen minutes and Stuart is waiting patiently out front for me to get into the Maybach. "I can't find my phone; can you call me please?"

She doesn't answer, but several seconds later, the strings of Vivaldi's Four Seasons bleat at me from under a pile of magazines at the end of the bed. I shove them away and scramble to check if Darius has left me any messages. Sure enough, there are four. Two from last night and two this morning, the last one wondering where I am.

I quickly shoot him a reply to let him know I had a late night with my mom going through fashion magazines and ordering new clothes for this summer from Net-a-porter as I bolt down the stairs, out the door, and dive in the back of the Maybach, where as always there is a mango, pineapple, and dragon fruit smoothie waiting for me. I sip it as I scroll through my favorite sites and catch up on what's happening in the fashion world, secretly thanking Dalia, my personal chef, for the little treat she hid in the armrest compartment. A Twinkie.

Mom would lose her shit if she knew I was eating these, but Dalia is on my side and indulges my cravings for good old American junk food. I especially love it when Stuart leaves the GPS tracker at home and sneaks me out to the Mcdonald's drive-thru where I order whatever I want, and pays in cash so Mom knows nothing. Anyway, Dalia is more of a mom to me than my own mom who's always jetting away in her Gulfstream to do God knows what back in her hometown of Seoul.

And Stuart, well he's just Stuart. He's as old as the hills but treats me like the granddaughter he never had. So, we're a weird family of odds and ends, but it's all I've ever known, and apart from how extra Mom can be about things like where I am and who I am with, it's a nice life.

Did I mention I'm adopted? Yeah. There's that. Mom told me when I was five. It was awful. My real mom and dad died in a terrible car accident while I was fighting for my life in an incubator as a preemie. Back then, Mom was Chairman of the hospital board, and because my real parents were economically challenged (as my mom likes to put it), and their only relations were either deceased, in jail, or had no way to pay the hospital bill for a premature baby, she decided there and then to adopt me as her own. My family never knew who adopted me, just that the hospital bill would be paid if they gave up the right to take me, and it seemed they were more than happy to offload me since she said they signed without even blinking. Sometimes I wonder about my blood relations, but I don't want to upset Mom and ask to meet them. The last time I mentioned it, she smiled and said, "Maybe one day, when we have more time." And then she distracted me with photos of her new superyacht waiting for us in the Cook Islands.

So that's how I got here. For the price of a hospital bill, I was adopted by possibly one of the wealthiest women in the world. But Mom keeps a low profile. No one really knows who she is, and she likes it that way. I'm not sure where her money comes from and I don't ask, but I know she is always very interested in any news that has to do with the tech billionaire Nolan Tyrs, so maybe she invests in his businesses. All I know for sure is she is always edgy about me being taken for ransom, and it took a lot of fights to get her to dismiss the bodyguard following me around 24/7. I don't get what she's so paranoid about. No one even knows who she is or could link her wealth to me. You can Google her name, Ylva Feng and you'll find pretty much nothing. I don't know how she does it, but she is pretty much invisible in this world, which makes me invisible too, I guess.

Mom is an elegant, ageless, soft-spoken Korean woman with impeccable manners, and I'm, well...as all-American as a girl can be. Blonde, tanned, crazy about Marvel movies, and the latest fashions from Victoria Beckham but also loves to blaze her way through forest trails on her mountain bike, and hike in faraway mountains no one here has heard of. The only thing that really sucks is Mom won't let me post my face on social media, so on IG all my photos are taken of me from behind, looking at the scenery, or are photos of Max, my Norwegian Forest Cat.

Outside, beyond the tinted windows of the car, the nature reserve of our private wetland speeds by, shimmering with June's midsummer heat. I scarf down the Twinkie reveling in the thought that there are only a few more days left of school, and I'm done. No more ties, blazers, or itchy wool skirts. I. Can't. Wait.

My phone vibrates. It's a frantic message from Darius.

Where are you? You're going to be in the *shit emoji* if you don't turn up in the next three minutes.

I'll be there in time, I write as Stuart gets waved through the gates leading down the oak-lined drive to the main entrance of the Academy, don't worry. I won't mess up our plans for after school with detention. I don't even have time to find the emojis I want to use, because Stuart opens the door, and the sweltering morning heat hits me full in my face.

"Three more days," he says with a smile as I jump out the back, hauling my school bag after me.

"Three more days!" I crow back and even though it's not allowed on campus, I start to run before the class bell rings. No way I'm getting detention today of all days.

Because Darius and I are going out on the town to celebrate his acceptance to Harvard. And then, after, he will come home with me.

Mom's gone back to South Korea for a week. And I've decided. It's time for me to lose my virginity. And he's the one I want to lose it to. He just doesn't know it yet.