by Lyla Payne
Nothing but the thought that it all seems so unreal. Fragile, to use the word Emilie used the other night. When it’s just Sebastian and me alone I can believe in it, but when the rest of the world gets involved—when I realize we’re going to have to figure out this whole fake engagement thing at some point and that my family is going to be less than understanding—it all gets smeary around the edges.
Class ends and I pack up my things and head to the cafeteria to meet my Political Science group—we have a big project due in a few weeks in place of a final. Finn Lewis is part of it, the chancellor’s son, and he’s not a bad partner. Which is good, because our third is Zachary Flynn and he’s been filming on location in Vancouver for the past six weeks and missing most of our classes.
I get through the meeting and make plans for another, still mostly in a dream world where everything is going to be fine. The video is gone, Logan is gone, and I’m more than halfway done with fulfilling my promise to help Sebastian rehab his image before graduation. Hell, he’s already got a job, so at this point all we have to do is not fuck it up.
The sunshine glints so hard in my eyes that at first it’s hard to recognize the figure leaning against my Audi in the parking lot—it’s a guy, and at first I think it might be Sebastian. My heart starts to speed up only to freeze in my chest at the sight of Logan.
I look around, struggling to breathe. To not throw up or scream.
This guy violated me. Stole my security and my ability to trust, threatened my family and my reputation. I thought I would never have to see him again.
“Hello, Audra.”
“You’re not supposed to be here. You were expelled.” My voice shakes and so do my hands. I clench them into fists, my keys biting into my palm.
“Yes, I know. Thanks to your boyfriend.”
Resolve floods me at the mention of Sebastian. He loves me. I am strong. But I can’t help looking around, scanning the parking lot to make sure we can’t be overheard. Him being here, in public, could undo everything I’ve worked hard to hide. “What do you want, Logan?”
“Just to give you some information, little dear.”
“I don’t want to listen to any more of your lies. Just leave me alone.” Tears burn in my throat, prick the backs of my eyes, but I will not give him the satisfaction.
“Oh, I think you’ll be interested in this one. It’s a fun little story about how the guy you’re letting fuck you in all kinds of depraved ways is the one who put those hot videos of your slutty side up on the internet to begin with, and then he got me kicked out of school to shut me up.”
My mouth is dry, stuffed with hundreds of imaginary cotton balls. His manic rage infects me, curling my fingernails into my palms. I’m going to be sick. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not lying.” A twisted, evil smile spreads his thin lips. I gag. “I need you to tell him something for me, yeah? Tell him that he either gets that site back up like he promised, or my backups are going viral on the Whitman servers in twenty-four hours.”
Logan pushes off my car and pats my cheek, laughing when I shudder. He starts to leave, the threat hanging in the air like a dangerous cloud. It’s the only thing I can see—the only thing I can hear, except the sound of my heart breaking. Of my whole world crumbling one brick at a time. I’d laid each one so carefully, putting it in place all these years, then this semester finally managed to make it beautiful.
With Sebastian. Who had known how to take those videos down so easily because he’s the one who put them up. Helped Logan exploit me.
My anger flips on like a switch. One minute I’m caught under the landslide of my life and the next I’m standing on top of it, my fists curled so tight I could punch someone.
I whirl. “Hey, Logan?”
He stops, eyeing me like a cat holding down a struggling mouse. “Yeah?”
“You can go fuck yourself. Sebastian’s not putting that site back up and as far as you putting the tapes back out there, go ahead. If you do, I’ll file charges and I won’t stop until your ass is rotting in prison.”
“You wouldn’t dare. Good little Audra Stuart doing those things on the internet for the whole world to see? You’d rather die.”
I take a step toward him, the power of acceptance flooding my blood. It’s heady. It makes me dizzy but I don’t stop, staring him down. “I’m not ashamed of having a healthy sexuality. My parents love me unconditionally and what you did is inexcusable. You’re a fucking predator and if you don’t get ass raped to death in prison, you’ll have to register as a sex offender every time you move for the rest of your miserable little life. I’m willing to take my chances. Having a few million people stare at my naked ass seems like a small price to pay in order to make sure you get what you deserve.”
He’s pale. Sweating. All the confidence gone from his eyes, replaced with slimy uncertainty. Fear, even. “You’re bluffing.”
“Fucking try me.”
I slide into my Audi and turn on the ignition, then peel out of the parking lot. I don’t make it two blocks before my hands and legs start to shake so badly that I have to pull off into a parking lot to put my head between my knees. I breathe in and out, the last ten minutes refusing to make sense.
I almost laugh at the thought that I must have picked up How to Threaten Someone and Mean It 101 from Sebastian, but the thought of him sinks my heart right into my ass. My mind blanks and my limbs grow heavy. All of me feels numb. Immobile. The guy who says he cares about me like he’s never cared about anyone, the one who made me believe he was capable of changing, is a liar. Not to mention the same guy who could have ruined the rest of my life. Ruined my family’s reputation. He’d done it for the money, or because he was bored, and even though a few weeks ago I’d agreed with Emilie about all the sadness that surrounds the reasons Sebastian Blair acts the way he does—right now?
I don’t see how I could ever forgive him.
The last time Sebastian pissed me off I’d avoided him. Stopped answering his calls, ignored his texts, but his choosing not to confide in me about the interview was nothing. A slight. A stupid thing that stupid girlfriends get upset about—an argument that, in the end, did more to strengthen us as a couple than tear us apart.
Knowing that he’s the one who exploited me, that he was probably earning a percentage in the process, sends me flying to the house on the beach. I hope he’s there, because there’s no way to have this fight in front of his frat brothers without them finding out about my sex tapes.
The rub of the situation is that he still has that over me, just like Logan. I piss him off, I tell him to go fuck himself the way I’ve been doing in my head for the past thirty minutes, and that footage could be back on the web with the link in everyone’s inbox before morning. Sebastian Blair is vindictive and mean; he’s callous and likes to set people on fire just to watch them burn. I get too far on his bad side and that’s going to be me.
But I have no problem making him the same deal I just offered Logan Walters, and Sebastian needs to know that everything but our original agreement is no longer possible. Every feeling I had for him is trapped behind a wall woven from his betrayal, stitched by lies said right to my face.
It’s not gone. The lord fucking knows that I’ve already let him too far in for that. I’m going to pay for letting my guard down, for believing in him. This betrayal left me icy cold at first. Numb. As I pull into the circle drive at the beach house and climb out of the car, I’m on fire—eyes stinging, flesh charring, no relief in sight.
The door is locked, for once, but a maid answers my soft knock and lets me inside as she leaves for the day. I find him in his bedroom in front of his laptop, French doors that open to the balcony overlooking the ocean. Late-afternoon sunshine and a salty breeze lend an unreal peace to the room that makes me question, just for a moment, if I’m overreacting.
I’m not.
“When were you going to tell me that you’re the one who created that website and put those sex videos up for L
ogan?”
He turns slowly, as though he wasn’t aware of my presence even though I’ve never been able to sneak up on him. His face is arranged in a mask of disinterest, one that flickers and fades, then strengthens again, letting me know it’s bullshit. Like the rest of him.
“Who told you?”
In spite of my best efforts, tears well in my eyes. “Logan was waiting for me after class.”
The fury takes over him like a storm—striking without warning as he steps to me and grabs my biceps. “What? Are you okay?”
I jerk away, his touch leaving behind smoldering ashes. “Don’t fucking touch me. I’m fine. He told me everything, and asked me to relay a message. If you don’t put my porn site back up in the next twenty-four hours he’s going to use his originals to make sure everyone at Whitman knows what I look like when I pleasure myself.”
His eyes flash, a fearsome sight. “Audra, I’m not going to let that—”
“Save it, Sebastian. I took care of it.”
He startles. “What do you mean, you took care of it?”
“I told him I don’t give a shit what he does with the videos, but if I find them online again—anywhere—I’m going to file charges and use my family’s substantial fortune to make sure he ends up in jail with a sex offender title and a big-ass boyfriend named Brutus.”
The fury eases, a pop of pride flashing across his handsome face. He replaces it with an indifferent expression that makes me want to scream. “You must have picked something up from hanging out with me these three months after all.”
“How could you lie to my face like that? Blackmail me when you’re the one who could have ruined my entire life?”
The indifferent expression flickers to loathing, then sorrow, before settling back into place. My heart tries to respond, wants me to reach out and swipe away the hurt, but I stomp on it myself.
“What do you mean, how could I do it? That’s who I am, Audra. It’s not my fault if you’ve chosen to believe something different because of this … situation we found ourselves in.” His jaw is tight, the muscles bulging. His dark eyes are unreadable, hard, and they don’t leave mine.
I swallow hard, determined not to cry. “No. You don’t get to do this, Sebastian. You don’t get to stand there and pretend like you weren’t the first one to admit you had feelings for me. You don’t get to stand there and act like this isn’t breaking my heart, knowing a guy I’ve come to care about so much thought so little of me three months ago that he took my body—which he had no right to—and put it on display for the world.”
The accusation has an effect on him and he crosses to the bed, sitting on the end with his head in his hands. The breeze kicks up and ruffles his hair, reminding me of the party the other night and how he’d taken my breath away. How I’d known, all in one instant, that what I was feeling wasn’t going away.
When he looks up, his eyes are cracked with red veins. The dark centers fill with more self-hatred that I’ve seen him display for months, but even though it kicks me in the stomach with the force of a mule, I don’t flinch.
“I’m so sorry, Audra. There’s not one excuse for what we did to you. It’s a sex crime. I deserve to rot right alongside Logan in a jail cell.” He swallows hard. “Getting to know you made me realize that the victims of my stupid little games have faces and lives and dreams, and none of them deserved being fucked with for my stupid, bored amusement.”
“You’re damn right. It’s gross that it took you actually speaking to another person on a personal level to realize that.”
He takes the insult without flinching. It makes me wonder how many he’s been hit with over the years. “I never thought I could be a part of people’s lives in another way. I thought that if they got to know me they would hate me, but being alone—not being needed—was never an option. I found a way to be necessary.”
“But not loved. Sebastian, why would people hate the real you?”
He doesn’t reply but I already know the answer. It’s because he hates himself. I don’t know the answer to why he’s continued to be a person he loathes—what inside him makes him believe he can’t be something different than the feared sociopath?
“I still can’t believe you don’t hate me. The first time you admitted you liked spending time with me it was like my whole world turned around. I didn’t believe in love—that it’s real, that people actually buy into that shit, that it would ever, ever happen to me. Then I met you, really met you, and everything changed.”
“You should have told me everything from the beginning. It wouldn’t have changed anything. I still would have needed you to take the site down and I still would have agreed to this whole stupid thing in order to keep my family from finding out.”
“I didn’t want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me right now. Like I’m a monster.”
It stuns me that he felt like that from our very first conversation. I never would have guessed it. Never had any idea how much longer it took me to get to the same place, one where I cared about what he thought of me.
My emotions jumble and twist, one coming forward and then another, until there’s no way for me to know how I feel about what he’s saying. About what we’ve been through or what I know now.
The silence on my end goes on too long and the light goes out in Sebastian’s eyes. He looks away from me, out the doors toward the horizon, and the earnestness leaves his voice. “If you want out, you’re out. I won’t post the video if you want to break things off—officially—and I can make sure Logan loses his files for good.”
Relief washes over me, cooling some of my anger and frustration and hurt. I’m not sure if that’s what makes the next sentence come out of my mouth, because it kind of takes even me by surprise. “No. We made a deal and I’m not going to back out.”
He whips around, consternation drawing his eyebrows together. I see him wonder what I’m wondering—if deep down I’m worried that he’ll change his mind if I back out. Maybe I am, but it doesn’t feel like a lack of trust that’s forcing my hand. I came here expecting a fight but received honesty instead, and even though it doesn’t change the betrayal or the lies, it does change the way I feel about it.
A little.
If I back out now, if rumors get started and Blair talks and Kennedy tells Toby the truth, it’s all over for Sebastian. I think of his mother in her hospital bed, the responsibility he bears for helping her, of the future he’s just now believing he can have if he wants it, and no matter what happened today, I can’t be the one to take that away from him.
I close my eyes and blow out a breath. “We keep things status quo as far as our relationship. But no more contact unless it’s necessary. No more spending the night, no more being alone together. All of those things you suggested when you wanted to know why I was actually spending time with you? Ways to make it look like we were inseparable even when we weren’t? They’ll come in handy.”
His face hardens, accepting my words as they flow across the room. He knows he deserves it, and I know this is the way it has to be and that there’s no way to come back from this as a couple.
Still, it hurts to hurt him, even if it is the right thing to do. It hurts to turn and leave, not knowing when we’ll talk again, when I’ll see him again. If I’ll see him again.
Walking away from the man I’m in love with, no matter how he’s made me feel today … it just fucking hurts.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sebastian
It’s been over three weeks since I’ve seen Audra in person. I thought it would get easier but every single day is harder than the one before it. I miss her more, think I smell her on my sheets and my skin, imagine her in the shower down the hall and in my bed, on the deck facing the ocean, her bare feet next to mine on the railing. We’re seeing each other this afternoon for the SEA pub crawl, but there will be hundreds of other people there. The only reason she agreed to it is that a bunch of her sisters are coming and, as my girlfriend, it would be
weird if she didn’t show up to support an event I’ve been immersed in for the past month.
I don’t know how I’m going to see her and not grab her. Not kiss her. But I can’t do that. Can’t violate her again when she knows that I’m the one who helped Logan do it in the first place. If there’s a chance that she can forgive me, that she’ll realize what I know—that the two of us are such a perfect fit she’ll never find it again anywhere else—she’s got to come to me.
I’ve become a fucking cliché. Let something go and see if it comes back to you. If it’s meant to be, it will be. Que sera, sera. Me and Cary Fucking Grant.
The plans for the pub crawl have been intact for at least ten days at this point, and Toby and I passed off the handling of details to the idiot freshmen who know they will get their asses kicked if they drop the ball, so we’re attending today more as figureheads than anything else. Neither of us is playing on a team and obviously Kennedy’s not drinking. I’m not sure if Audra wants to participate since we haven’t discussed anything other than time and place.
We’re starting and ending at the Pub, since it’s closest to campus so the drunk dumbasses will be able to drag themselves home afterward. The bad thing about that decision is that the place is way too small to hold the two hundred or so people who have shown up, a number that exceeds even our highest estimate. Whitman kids like to drink, sure, but they’re also lazy as hell and this is a Saturday afternoon.
Even with the chaos of people showing up and checking in and getting their disability assignments, I don’t miss Audra’s arrival. She’s with Kennedy instead of Blair, which pushes a sigh of relief out of my lungs. Blair is too much like me, which gives her the power to see through me—I know because I can do it with her.
Maybe it’s not so strange, I think as I make my way toward my fake girlfriend, that she fell for me even for a moment since her best friend is also a conniving con woman.
“Hi.” I greet her with a kiss to the cheek, like everything is normal. Like my guts aren’t about to explode with nerves and regret and self-loathing.
