by Sienna Blake
This time, there would be no mask.
There would be no lottery. No winners. No secrets.
Just Aubrey. And Noah. And—
The front door banged, startling me. I tore my mouth off Noah’s as I stared at the door.
“Leave it. We’re not home,” Noah whispered.
I giggled and pressed my lips to his again.
The door banged even louder. I let out a sigh into Noah’s mouth. “It’s probably Sean. He must have forgotten something.”
Noah stilled, his shoulders sagging as if accepting that our much-anticipated reunion would need to be postponed. “Better go see what he wants and get it over with then.” Noah kissed me hard, causing the lust to swirl around in my body. “I’ll wait for you in the bedroom.”
I giggled as he grabbed his shirt from the floor, sending me a wink over his shoulder as he disappeared into my bedroom.
I yanked my t-shirt on and walked to the door. “Coming, Sean.” I swung open the door. “What did you for—?”
It wasn’t Sean standing on my threshold. It was a man I didn’t recognize. He was a bit older, maybe in his forties or fifties with a thick crop of dark hair. Was he wearing makeup? Behind him stood a man with a camera on his shoulder aimed right at my face.
“Tell the world about your lottery winner’s night, Aubrey!” the reporter said in an overly excited voice.
“What?”
I felt every muscle in my body lock up. Shock rippled through me, my guts twisted like a python around prey. I’d been found out.
How the hell had they found me? This had to be a joke or something. These were some jokers sent by Darren. Or Eoin. Yeah, this is something they’d do. But deep down, I knew they wouldn’t.
“You know…” the reporter said, “four hot Irishmen playing out your ultimate fantasy?”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t win.”
“Oh really?” Both the reporter’s eyebrows creeping up a quarter inch, his disbelieving tone ringing in my ears. “Because we got a hold of the fantasy you emailed in. Tell me if this sounds familiar…I just want someone to give me an orgasm.”
I stumbled back as my whole world crashed down on me. My heart began to pound painfully fast in my chest. My face stung and I knew I was going bright red. A gleam of satisfaction lit the reporter’s eyes and I knew my horrified, raw reaction had been caught on camera. No one watching this footage would have any doubt I had won and shared a night with four men.
“What’s going on here?” Noah called from behind me. He must have come out from the bedroom, wondering why I was taking so long.
I wanted to melt into him, to run away from here and pray that I was imagining this nightmare. He appeared beside me, wrapping a protective arm around my shoulder and pulling me against him, his jaw tight. I curled into his side.
“Did you know your girlfriend slept with four men behind your back?”
Noah’s expression turned murderous. “Leave her alone,” he growled in a low primal voice. “Or I will fucking end you.” I’d never heard him speak this way before. I’d never seen him this furious.
I caught the look of fear flashing across the reporter’s face before Noah slammed the door shut. The light sound of the bolt sliding home didn’t make me feel safe. Because the door wouldn’t hold anything back. It was too late. The truth was going to be all over the news. That private night between the four of us, between Noah and me, out for the public to feast on. My private plea for an orgasm exposed for the world.
This couldn’t be happening. How had they found me? How had they gotten a hold of my entry? I knew that there was no way the brothers had sold me out. Heck, Michael and Eoin had more to lose than I did if this became public knowledge.
Eoin could lose his spot on his rugby team, Michael could lose the hard-earned respect he had at his firm. They could lose everything if this got out to the mainstream public. And it would all be my fault, because somehow, my information was what had leaked. Or was it everything? Did this man know everything?
How could I ever leave the house again? How could I face anyone? Oh, God. How could I look at Ma again? I burned with shame. A sob escaped me.
Noah pulled me against his chest, wrapping both arms around me as if he could shield me from the world. He couldn’t. “I swear I’ll make this better.”
I didn’t believe him. He couldn’t undo what had been done.
Nobody could.
Noah
Darren’s shop smelled like motor oil and rubber, tasted like summers helping Darren rebuild old cars, and felt like a home away from home. I wasn’t in the headspace to appreciate any of it. I was struggling to keep my fury in check. I stepped over the creeper Darren used to work under cars to stand before him.
“How the fuck did they find out about her?” My voice echoed off the shop walls.
Darren glanced up at me and told the young mechanic standing next to him to take a break.
The young lad scurried off, wide eyes.
I ignored his backward glances at me.
The look of heartbreak in Aubrey’s eyes, the hollow expression that hadn’t left her face since the reporter showed up outside her door, haunted me. I felt personally responsible. It should have been anonymous. I should have protected her from this. I’d failed.
Darren faced me once we were alone in the shop. “I’m sorry.” The tight set to his lips told me he was tightly controlling his own rage.
“I don’t want your sorries, I want to know how they found her.”
“I’d only be guessing,” Darren said, wiping his oily hands on a rag.
“Then guess,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Someone hacked into the giveaway program, got her IP address attached to her entry and used that to track down her computer.”
“Why didn’t you protect her from being hacked?” I screamed at him.
Every part of Darren sagged, from his shoulders to the corners of his mouth.
I instantly felt like an asshole. But I couldn’t stop. The woman I loved was suffering. “This is your fault,” I hissed. I felt my fists clench at my side. I’d fuck up the motherfucker that dug for this information and used it to hurt her. I’d kill them. All of them.
Darren raised his palms to face me. “I know you’re pissed. I’m fucking pissed, too. But I’m not going to fight with you, you crazy bastard.”
“Fuck!” I screamed out into the shop.
I turned on my heel and strode across the shop, ignoring Darren calling out for me. I began to beat on the bag Darren had hung back in a corner for quick lunch break workouts. He was quick to come hold the bag for me. With every pounding punch and kick, his whole body jolted. His jaw tightened as he leaned into the bag. I let it out, landing blow after blow after blow until my knuckles screamed and sweat dampened my shirt.
“I’m sorry,” Darren repeated, rubbing the back of his hand over his damp forehead.
I shook my head. “It’s not your fault.”
“What can I do?” He gave me such a desperate look, one that mirrored how I felt.
“Nothing.” My shoulders sagged as the truth hit me. Even I couldn’t do a damn thing. “How come they didn’t find out about us?” I asked, not really caring if we were outed too.
“I made sure the giveaway website was untraceable. We won’t be exposed. Unless…”
Unless Aubrey outed us.
“She wouldn’t,” I growled. “Fuck you for even suggesting she would.”
Darren lifted up his hands again in surrender. “Chill, bro. I know she wouldn’t. But you know me, I wouldn’t care if she did. I think it’d be better for her if we stood up next to her, but…”
But Eoin and Michael would lose everything.
I couldn’t ask my brothers to do that.
Aubrey
They’re calling her Easy A!
“Because her name is Aubrey,” the blonde RTE news anchor said to the other, leaning in like she was revealing a joke. T
hey both laughed even though it wasn’t funny. At all. I wiggled deeper under the pile of blankets I was hiding in on the couch as I changed the channel.
“These guys were super smart, see, because they had masks on and no one knows their identity. It’s not like she could call them again afterwards!” The two male BBC One newscasters broke out laughing.
The other guy piped up, “Man, how many times have you tried to kick a gal out the door after, only to have her show up at your place later?”
“Like when your wife is home?” the first guy said, clapping the other on the back.
I changed the channel.
“See, they had the right idea,” an Ireland AM presenter said, while the other two men and lone woman leaned in subtly like they were waiting for the punchline. “Clever bastards got to sleep with an attractive woman and made money off it.”
“Yeah, but who knows how else she paid them in return,” the woman said, her waggling eyebrows revealing what she really meant.
The third presenter spoke up. “Yeah, a venereal disease!”
Their laughter made me sick to my stomach. I should stop watching, but I just couldn’t. It was like watching a car crash. But…this was my life being torn apart before my eyes.
I changed the channel.
A frozen image of me in my doorway, red-faced, mouth open in shock, appeared on screen behind two female presenters. At least they didn’t choose a still with Noah in it as well.
“…with the identity of the four men still unknown, the one feeling public backlash is Aubrey Campbell, identified as an American living in Dublin.”
The second presenter. “And she should be; this is shameless and disgusting.”
How many of these very women had sent in their own entries? Who had also tried for this prize and now sat up on their high horses talking me down?
“This will die down soon,” Noah said, walking in and turning off the TV.
I stayed hidden under the blankets. I’d had to stay at Noah’s place since the media was parked outside mine. I’d even received death threats, and a certain American religious group was picketing about how I was a loose woman and how God hated proud sinners like me. I hadn’t left Noah’s apartment in days because the last time I walked down the road to get milk at the local shops, I was given dirty looks. I was filmed by people’s cell phones, held up in my face like I was some kind of celebrity in the middle of a breakdown. People shouted all manner of things at me, from calling me a whore to telling me to just kill myself. Strangers told me to kill myself. Because I’d won a prize and had a wonderful night of passion with four men. People thought I should die for that.
Maybe they were right. I mean, enough people say a thing, it must be true, right? I’d seen those words pour into my email, flood my social media, everything. I’d closed down all my accounts, I’d turned off my phone.
It felt like my life was over. Noah was my one faint ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark place. The only thing keeping me going.
“Ignore them,” he said, hunkering down before me. With gentle hands he moved the blankets away from my face, opening the viewing porthole I’d allowed myself. He ran his thumbs over my face and brushed back my sweaty hair. “The people who love you will support you.”
I wasn’t so sure. I hadn’t seen Ma since all of this, but I knew there was no way she’d let me—a ruined, loose woman—marry her son. Why would she approve?
Noah leaned in and pressed his lips to mine.
I let him kiss me. For one moment I let myself forget the disaster that was my life and lose myself in his lips.
When he pulled away, I whimpered as the world caved in on me again.
“Are you going to come out of that blanket?” he asked softly.
I shook my head and tried to burrow myself deeper into my fort. Not that the fort could stop the world from laying siege on my life.
“Rey? At least come out and give me a proper hug before I head off to The Jar.”
I let out a groan.
“Candace has been asking about you. She’s worried.”
I knew burrowing myself in blankets wasn’t healthy. I was handling things badly. Time to put my big girl panties on. There was no reason to let strangers dictate how I lived my life. I had to leave the damn house sometime. Right? And I couldn’t let Noah keep supporting me without paying my own way.
“I think I want to do my shift tonight,” I said softly in a voice that didn’t even sound like me.
“Are you sure?”
“No…yes… I need to get out of the house. I need to earn my way—”
“I don’t care about that.”
“Noah,” I said softly, “you can’t keep housing me and feeding me forever while I hide out in your apartment.”
Noah gave me a look that said, I can.
My heart warmed. If I hadn’t fucking loved him enough before now… “I know you would,” I said. “And I love you for it. But I am going to do a shift.”
Noah studied me for one long moment, then nodded. “I’ll be right there beside you, babe.”
His words were tiny candles of hope. As long as Noah was by my side, I’d get through this. Right?
Twenty minutes later, after showering and feeling halfway human again, we were parking outside The Jar.
Noah had turned on one of our happy ’80s music mixes during the car ride and had spent all of two minutes belting out the words to “Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC before giving up. I was barely listening, silent the whole way, too busy trying to talk myself out of having a breakdown.
The Jar would be safe, right? People there knew me. They were my friends.
“Not too late to turn around,” Noah said.
I shook my head. “I’m okay.” I shot Noah a smile that I didn’t feel.
With Noah at my side, we walked into The Jar.
Candace spotted us and made a beeline right for me, ignoring the table she’d been standing at.
My first instinct was to turn and flee, but Noah’s hand rested at my lower back, keeping me in place.
With a squeal, she rushed up and threw her arms around me. “You lucky bitch,” she said in my ear before backing off and beaming at me.
Other staff members waved and smiled at me.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe Noah was right. Maybe the people who mattered would support me. After all, why did I care what a bunch of strangers thought of me? It’s not like they were living my life. They had no right to judge me. They sure as hell didn’t know my story.
I made myself busy, waiting on tables with a smile plastered on my face that grew less fake and more real as the night went on. Noah would come over and check in on me every so often, making sure I was still okay, placing a hand on my back or pressing his lips to my forehead. It made me smile every time he did it.
As people came in, I noticed a few staring at me, but most didn’t. A few people whispered as I passed. Most didn’t.
That was enough to keep my chin up.
A loud noise at the door drew my attention as three young men burst in, obviously intoxicated. The guy I instinctively identified as the ringleader saw me and a grin spread across his face. He smacked his friends’ chests, turning their attention to me. They all stumbled towards me.
I backed up a step, knowing this wasn’t going to go well.
“You’re that girl,” the first one said, slurring his speech.
He was loud enough that heads began to turn towards me.
I swallowed hard, unable to find my voice to respond. Not that it made any difference.
The guy spread his arms out to the sides in a weak attempt to hit the pose Noah had in the picture they’d posted on the website for the lottery. “Me and my pals here,” he said, looking from one to the other, “would love to give you an orgasm. All of us. I know you like that kind of thing, you know, being shared—”
I screamed as Noah hurtled across the bar, his whole weight behind the fist he threw at the ringleader’s face. I hea
rd and felt the crunch of bones as he connected.
“Noah, stop!” I screamed.
But he was on top of the guy, punches flying, shouting that he better fucking apologize to me if he wanted to walk away with only a broken nose.
The bar erupted into chaos.
Noah
In the holding cell, I sat on the edge of the uncomfortable cot and touched my lip. It was tender and swollen. My eyes jumped to my knuckles, which were busted…likely from smashing that asshole’s nose. I could feel bruises forming along my ribs where his friends leapt in to help him.
I didn’t give a damn about bruises. Or the fact that I was spending the night in the local Garda station. I’d done what I’d done and I’d done it to protect Aubrey. Maybe those guys were just hot air. But what the fuck might have happened if they caught her outside out of the public eye? What if they’d felt bolder, or caught her off guard and alone?
It wasn’t the first time I’d been thrown in lock-up for the night. I doubted it would be the last.
I stretched out on my back on the cot, staring up at the concrete ceiling as Aubrey drifted back into my thoughts. I heard her screaming as I took the bastard down. I felt her hands on me as she pulled me to my feet. I saw the fear in her eyes as the sirens blared, felt her fingers laced with mine as she sat by my side while they came for me. It was all blurry, but she was clear. Candace had promised to get Aubrey safely to my place and keep her there.
“I’m sorry,” Aubrey had whispered in my ear as the cops pulled me out of the bar. She had nothing to be sorry about. I’d defend her with my dying breath. I should have apologized to Aubrey. If it wasn’t for me and the stupid lottery…
“Where is he?”
That was Eoin’s voice. I glanced up. Behind Eoin, I saw Michael and Darren stomping down the hall on the heels of a Garda named Niall. He’d been the one to process me in.
“They paid your bail,” Niall said, unlocking my cell door.
