by Mae Doyle
Wicked Truth
A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance
Rogues of Taylor Prep 3
Mae Doyle
Contents
Title Page
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
This is a work of art/fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events, or places is purely coincidental. Any persons appearing on the cover image for this book are models and do not have any connection to the contents of this story.
All characters depicted in this work are unrelated consenting adults. This author assumes no responsibility for the use/misuse of this material.
© 2020 Mae Doyle
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Chapter 1
As excited as I’d been to go to Taylor Prep in the fall, I wasn’t sure that I would ever be ready to go back, not really. Not after I’d spent a few glorious weeks with my mom, watching old moving, eating popcorn, and texting Harper and Maggie.
“Do you need anything else packed up before you get on the road?” My mom peeked into my bedroom where I was perched on the edge of my bed, looking around at all of my old posters I’d had up. Since I’d been homeschooled, I hadn’t been introduced to the same crazy music that my friends had. A lot of my posters were for old bands that my mom and dad had listened to when I was growing up.
“I think I’m good. Unless you have any extra snacks that you want to sneak into my backpack for me.” My mom sighed and sat down on the bed next to me, pulling me over so that I was snuggled up against her. This is exactly how we’d sat on the sofa every night this break, and I snuggled in tighter, enjoying the way her arms wrapped around me.
“I read the handbook, Rose. I don’t think you’re supposed to be taking any snacks back with you.” She laughed and kissed me on the forehead. “But because I know that you’re going to do it anyway, I went ahead and put some more candy in the front pocket of your bag.”
“You’re the best.” I kissed my mom on the cheek. Even though we’d spent a wonderful break together, I hadn’t told her about what life was really like at Taylor Prep. I didn’t want her to worry, and honestly, I didn’t want her to try to pull me out.
Before I could decide if I were going to say anything more, there was a honk from the front of the house. “That must be your ride.” My mom kissed me on the forehead again, then hopped up off of the bed, giving me a chance to look at her.
Not only had we not talked about life at Taylor Prep, but I also hadn’t asked her anything about the person from school coming to her work. I was dying to know who would go to the strip club to see her, and how in the hell they found her, but I didn’t want her to know how bad it was.
“You sure that you’re okay with me spending the last few days with Harper and Maggie?” When Harper had asked us to come over for the end of break, nothing had sounded more appealing, but now that it was time to actually leave my mom, I was struggling. I didn’t want to be away from her. I knew that I couldn’t protect her from the kids at Taylor Prep, but at least if I were around, I would feel like I could.
“Of course I am! I had good girlfriends, too, when I was your age. You know, I wasn’t sure about Taylor Prep at first, or about you going so far away, but I think it was the right fit for you. Maybe your dad knew what he was talking about after all.” Mom tried to sound light, but I heard her get a little choked up when she mentioned my dad. She wiped a tear away from her eye and pulled me to my feet. “Now go, before your chauffeur decides to leave you here.”
I rolled my eyes but grabbed my backpack and my suitcase, dragging it behind me until my mom stopped me and took it from me. Our house was small, with just two bedrooms and an open kitchen and dining room, but it felt like home. I’d grown used to how cozy and close it was, and I knew that everything would feel different in Harper’s giant mansion.
“Just make sure that you text more, ok, Rose?” My mom hugged me in the door before I left. “I miss you when you’re not here.”
I wrapped my arms around my mom and squeezed her as tight as I could. “I will. You be safe at work, okay?” She pulled back and gave me a curious look, but I just smiled at her. That’s all I felt like I could say without her getting suspicious. I needed my mom to be safe, but I couldn’t let her know why I was worried.
She nodded and handed me back my suitcase. Turning around, my jaw dropped open. I had expected Harper’s mom to come pick us up, but instead she had sent a huge limo. My friends were standing up and waving from the sunroof.
“Rose! Are you ready?” Harper was giggling and leaning past Maggie to yell at me. “Thanks for letting her come stay with us, Mrs. Bennett!”
Beside me, my mom raised a hand and waved back. “You kids have fun! Be safe! Study hard!”
Rolling my eyes, I took that as my cue and walked quickly to the limo. Maggie popped her head into the vehicle and opened the door for me. “Rose! I’m so glad you’re here!” She grabbed me and pulled me in before I could put my things inside. I turned around and leaned out to get them, but the chauffeur had already hopped out and loaded them into the trunk. He smiled at me and shut the door before getting back in and driving away.
Frantically, I pushed my friends out of the way and popped my head out of the skylight to wave at my mom. She was still standing on the porch, her hands clasped tightly around each other before she lifted one to wave. I waved as hard as I could until the driver turned a corner and I couldn’t see her, then I dropped back down to sit with my friends.
“So, what do you think?” Harper rubbed her hands on the leather seat and grinned at me. Next to her, Maggie opened a cooler and pulled out a can of orange soda, handing it over to me. “Lap of luxury, no?”
“It’s something,” I agreed, sitting back and trying to relax. There was enough room in here for all three of us to stretch out without running into each other, and I did, feeling the tension ease from my body. “I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the rogues and the harpies, but I was excited to be with my friends again.
We drove for a while, my friends chattering while I stared out the windows and watched my town disappear. Harper lived about two hours from me, which meant that we would be closer to Taylor Prep when it was time to go back to school, but that I was going to be away from my mom for longer. I was beginning to have second thoughts about leaving her when Harper interrupted my thoughts.
“Okay, Rose. Spill. Tell us what’s been going on. We haven’t seen you in weeks and you’re so quiet it’s like you’re not here.” She got up and sat next to me, looping her arm around my shoulders and pulling me so that my head was resting against her. It felt good, and I closed my eyes for a moment.
“I just wish that they had left my mom out of it.” My voice was quiet at first, but the more I thought about how they treated my mom, the angrier and louder I got. “I mean, I don’t even know what I did to make everyone hate me so much
, but then they had to go and drag my poor mom into it, you know? Who does that?”
“I take it that you didn’t figure out who went to see her in the video?” Maggie reached over and took my hand, giving it a little squeeze. When I shook my head, she continued, “no matter what happens, Rose, we’re here for you. We’re not going to leave you on your own, and neither are the boys.”
The boys. I had totally forgotten that my two best friends had boyfriends. Woods and Everett had both wanted to see them for these last few days of break, but they had told them that I was more important.
I know that it should have made me feel good, but it really only made me feel a little more guilty. “You know that you guys didn’t have to give up time with them, right?”
Maggie shot Harper a look over me, but I saw her raise her eyebrow. “What? What don’t I know? You guys are all still okay, right?”
Harper laughed. “Yeah, we’re awesome, Rose, and that’s why we told the boys to back off. We wanted to be with you not just to support you, but also because you are really important to us.” She paused, and I waited, knowing there was more. “Maggie and I got some texts over break letting us know that things were going to ramp up once we were back, and that we needed to prepare.”
Texts? “I didn’t get any texts over break, except from you guys. What are you talking about?” See? This was exactly what I had thought would happen. I didn’t want Harper and Maggie to get drug down into the cesspool I was in simply because they were my friends, but I saw the signs.
“Yeah, texts, but don’t worry, Rose. They didn’t say anything really bad.” Maggie drew a crooked circle on my knee. “Well, they said that you shouldn’t come back and that we should do everything we could to stop you.”
“Did you respond? What did they say when you texted back?”
She paused, and Harper spoke up. “We did text back, Rose, but they never responded, so we called them and the number had been disconnected. We have no idea who it was, but whoever it was, they got a burner phone simply so they could send us those messages.”
“That’s fucked up.” Nervously, I wiped the back of my hand across my forehead. “Who would do that? Aren’t phones expensive?” I glanced up, then caught the look that both of my friends were giving me. “Oh, right. Money is no object for most of the students at Taylor Prep. How silly of me.” Sighing, I slumped back on the seat.
“It sucks, Rose, but you don’t have to worry. The boys think that it’s a load of crap, too, and we’re not going to let anything bad happen to you, okay?” Maggie gave me a crooked smile. I tried to return it, but it fell flat.
There was no way that my two friends, as sweet and kind as they were, could do anything to keep me safe. Not only had I defied the rogues and the harpies, but also the council, which I didn’t even know was a thing at first.
“Well,” I said, blowing out a breath. “I tried to do some research at home but there’s a surprising deficit of information about Taylor Prep available online. Did you guys find anything?”
Harper brightened up. “Nothing about the council, which I know is the most important thing right now, but I did find my mom’s old yearbooks! She was at Taylor Prep all four years, so we can flip through them and look for pictures of the parents of some of our classmates, if you want.”
I shrugged, feeling a little defeated. “I don’t know how looking at old photos will help us,” I said, slowly, not wanting her hurt her feelings, “but I guess it couldn’t hurt. Did you ask your mom about the council, by any chance?”
She shook her head so hard her ponytail swung around and hit me in the face. “Oh, sorry about that. No, I didn’t. I couldn’t find any mention of it in the yearbook, and I know that if she thought something weird was going on, she may try to pull me from school.”
“Same here.” Maggie twirled her hair around her finger. “I found the same yearbooks that Harper did. Our moms were actually friends, isn’t that wild? But besides that, no mention of rogues, harpies, or the council.”
Of course there wouldn’t be any mention of them. Mentioning them would mean that Taylor Prep had to admit that there was some seriously messed up stuff going on behind the scenes at their perfect little school, and there wasn’t any way that they were going to want to do that.
The conversation switched from the past to what we were going to do when we got to Harper’s. With only five minutes to spare in the ride, we decided on swimming in the indoor heated pool first followed by a movie marathon and gourmet popcorn.
I wished that I would stop thinking about the drama at school by the time we pulled up into the driveway, but even when the chauffeur hopped out and opened the door for us, my mind was still working just as hard.
Chapter 2
The rest of our vacation flew by in a blur. All I know is that I ate my weight in gourmet popcorn, swam until my fingers got all wrinkly, and could totally get used to wearing a huge fluffy robe around the house all of the time. Harper’s mom was nicer than ever, probably because she’d lived the drama of going back to school after Christmas break and knew how stressful it could be.
“I noticed that you’re the only one who doesn’t have a matching bracelet with the girls.” Mrs. Pierce had pulled aside after breakfast on our last day at her house. My friends were upstairs getting packed, but I’d done that the night before, so I had picked up the paper to check out the headlines.
My stomach dropped when she mentioned the bracelets. I hated thinking that anyone would notice that they had the same leather bracelet and I didn’t, even though there was no way that I would ever want to wear one. Not when I knew what it meant. I was excluded from the other students at Taylor Prep, but more than that, I was supposed to leave.
The bracelet was like my scarlet letter.
“So instead of making it a big deal, I thought that I’d get you a little extra Christmas present – one that just you would have. I hope that’s okay.” Her eyes searched my face, and I smiled. Mrs. Pierce had more money than anyone I knew, but she handled it really well and never made me feel poor. She handed me a small box wrapped in bright purple paper and tied with a silver bow, and I carefully lifted the lid.
Even though I knew that she had a lot of money, there was nothing that could prepare me for what I saw inside the box. Nestled in deep purple velvet was a gorgeous silver bracelet with small diamonds up the middle. It was the nicest gift anyone had ever given me, and definitely worth more than all of my other jewelry put together.
“I hope that it’s not too much. Harper told me a little about the circumstances under which you came to Taylor Prep, and so I already knew that you were fighting a bit of an uphill battle.” She paused, cupping my chin in her hand to make me look at her. “Please tell me that I didn’t cross a line, Rose.”
Even though I opened my mouth to speak, all I could do was shake my head at first. Swallowing hard, I managed, “you didn’t. It’s beautiful, thank you.”
She nodded and picked up the bracelet, quickly fastening it around my wrist. I turned my arm one way and then the other, enjoying how the light sparkled and played off of the diamonds. It was a gorgeous bracelet, but more than that, the thought behind it made me happy.
“This way, when it feels like you’re all alone, you’ll remember that someone is thinking about you. Well, someone other than your mom, of course. She’s done a great job raising a wonderful daughter, but there’s no harm in someone else loving you, right?” Before I could answer, she reached over and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me in for a hug.
I leaned into her, smelling her rich perfume. Mrs. Pierce pretended not to notice when some tears leaked from my eyes and soaked into her blouse.
Just then, we heard my friends come running down the steps. I leaned back quickly, wiping my eyes, and Mrs. Pierce slipped the box off of the table and into her lap. Harper and Maggie burst into the room, laughing and pushing each other out of the way. “You ready?” Harper’s voice rang through the dining room, and I pasted a smi
le onto my face.
It may have felt fake at first, but I knew that it wouldn’t for long. My friends made me really happy and I couldn’t wait to hang out with them some more.
The butler took all of our luggage out to the car while Harper hugged her mom. Before we left, she called me one more time. “Rose, Harper told me that the chocolate cake didn’t make it to school last time.”
“Sorry. It’s just so good!” I grinned at her and shrugged. “Maybe you shouldn’t have given us forks to go with it. It may have lasted then.”
She laughed and turned around to call into the kitchen. At her voice, the double doors swung open and the chef appeared, carrying not one, but two of my favorite chocolate cakes. “Well, this time I had him make you girls two of them. You can share them with other friends once you get there, or not. But I hope you enjoy them.”
Without thinking about it, I ran over and threw my arms around her one more time. She was an absolute gem and a bright spot in my Christmas break. I wasn’t sure if she knew anything about what really went on behind the doors at Taylor Prep, but I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she did.
Maybe that was why she was being so nice to me. Whatever the reason, I appreciated it, and I appreciated the cake.
◆◆◆
We finished one chocolate cake while we still had half of the ride to Taylor Prep to go. Groaning, I leaned back and stretched out, taking up as much room in the limo as I could. Even with all three of us stretching out, we still had room to spare. The Pierce family sure knew how to travel in style.
“Okay, you want to look at the yearbooks?” Harper unzipped her backpack and started digging through it. We had hoped to have time to look at it while we were still at the house, but we spent so much time swimming and eating that we just decided to save it until we were on the road. Now that it was finally time to flip through it, I felt a little nervous.
