This hurt.
“What did he do?” Tamara’s tone was predatory, defensive. And Rashae wasn’t worth that friendship.
“I think...I think I’ve—I don’t know—fallen for him?” She hated the way her voice went up at the end. She had, damn it, and she didn’t have the ovaries to admit her feelings to her best friends. Why? Because she was eating crow? Because she’d trusted the wrong man? God, she was a coward and a hypocrite. The very worst combination.
“Oh, honey, what happened?” Miranda’s tone was a warm hug, full of comfort.
Rashae started slowly. They hadn’t had a lot of time to talk like they normally did. The holidays were hell on their regular chats, so there was a lot to get through. Both of the girls kept the bulk of their comments to themselves, allowing Rashae to power through her rambling account and her roller coaster feelings.
“Maybe I’m not getting it, but...what’s so bad about liking this guy?” Tamara asked toward the end.
“We agreed it was casual.” Rashae stared longingly at her still full glass.
“He went home with you for Christmas and hung out with your family. That’s not casual,” Miranda said.
“No, but...I’m not finished.” Rashae grabbed the glass and took another gulp. For courage. “Today I made up my mind that I was going to tell him, and I figured...why not jump in the deep end?”
“What did you do?” Tamara’s tone lifted the hair on Rashae’s arms.
“I walked into the living room. Naked. And he was on a video call with the game developers. They’ve started slinging mud at me on the forums. It’s worse than Reddit. Everyone knows.” She sucked down a deep breath.
Fuck it.
She downed the rest of the glass.
“Oh, no... That...that sucks.” Miranda stared at Rashae from the screen, eyes wide, mouth open.
“But there aren’t any pictures? Or video?” Tamara asked.
“No—thank God. But the worst of it? The worst of it is that he’s been lying to me this whole time. We’ve been spending time together because I thought we were in crunch trying to get a workable design for production. I invited him to spend Christmas with my family. And what does he do? He says nothing. He tells me we’ve hit a few road bumps, but everything’s fine. Why don’t you send them the digital files? Maybe that’ll change their minds. Fucking liar’s probably hawking prints of my shit.”
“That sucks. Way not cool, dude.” Tamara was the oddly serious one. “About the forum and the rest of it? Look, people talk. It sucks. But at least there isn’t photo evidence out there. Unplug, stay off the forums, take a break from the Internet until the holidays are done. It’ll blow over.”
Rashae nodded. And it would, for the most part. The people who didn’t matter would go on to the next thing and the next. But whenever someone researched her now, this was part of her living resume. All because she’d let herself fall for the wrong guy. Someone who lied to her.
“What’d Declan have to say about this?” Tamara asked.
“We didn’t talk. I couldn’t look at him. I was so embarrassed all I could think about was getting home and collecting my thoughts.” Rashae put the glass down and resituated. The edge was gone and now...she was free to wallow in her pool of self pity. “I so want to burn his ass right now.”
Not only had he lied, he’d used her time, her work, her family. Was the sob story he’d told her even true? What else was a lie?
“I’m going to call him,” she said.
“Shae? Shae, think about this,” Miranda said. “How much did you just drink? How angry are you?”
“I’m calling him.” Rashae tapped the mute icon. Sure, they could still hear her, but fuck it. She didn’t give a damn. She was going to tell Declan where to shove it.
He’d be almost home by now, so she didn’t feel any guilt about dialing him. She pushed to her feet, needing to pace. Both Miranda and Tamara stared at her from the laptop in front of the fireplace.
“Rashae—hey—”
“You lied to me.” She jabbed at the air with her finger.
“W-what? When?”
He had.
And he knew it.
His tone, the way his voice wavered...
Oh, God, she’d been hoping it was all a misunderstanding. That she was wrong. That there was some sort of explanation for all of this. But there wasn’t. He’d just lied to her. And why wouldn’t he? He’d admitted he was practically her stalker, obsessed with her, why hadn’t she paused to take him seriously?
“What are you talkin’ about, Rashae?”
“Ayan posted in the developer’s forum. He claims that he didn’t want to hire me, that he told you several times they wanted to go with their original artist and you never told me. You kept saying everything was fine. We’d make it work out. You let me lose sleep and kill myself trying to make them happy and for what? Nothing? So, you could—what? Scratch some sort of fanboy itch?”
She braced her hand on the back of the sofa, staring at the fabric. She could feel the girls watching her, the weight of their stares. She’d let herself become so infatuated with this idea, the concept of a relationship, when in truth she was just sad, pathetic and lonely.
“I didn’t tell you everythin’.” Declan’s voice was husky, hard to understand.
“So you lied?”
“Yes, but only—”
“You lied. What can you possibly say that makes that okay, Declan? What? When I asked, when I gave you an opportunity to tell me point blank that it wasn’t working out, you let me believe I was still on the job. I took time away from my family, my loved ones, my sick sister, to bust my ass for you. For you! A liar and a cheat. You used me, Declan, and I’m not going to stand for it. Fuck you.”
She jabbed the End Call button, but she felt no sense of victory. Only loss. She rubbed at her chest and the deep ache behind her sternum.
Wasn’t that supposed to make her feel better?
Rashae plodded around the sofa and grabbed her glass.
She’d trusted Declan with more than just herself, her work. And he’d just assisted her in ruining a dream she’d had for years. All for what? Some sex?
For her it’d been more.
It was probably her fault.
She’d been so hungry for someone to pay attention to her, so desperate to be the focal point of someone’s world since her friends were moving on, that she’d taken what she could get and ran with it. She’d made this mess for herself.
It just went to underscore the fact that men had no place in her life.
Rashae unmuted the video call, all the sounds rushing back in. Music. Laughter. Her friend’s vibrant lives. Rashae’s paled in comparison. What did she have? Work. She was successful, but at what cost?
“Feel better, buttercup?” Tamara’s tone might as well have said, I told you so.
Yeah, well, Rashae had hoped for different words. A better outcome. This was learning the hard way.
“No.” She stared at the worn keys, most with half the letters rubbed off. “He lied. He said so himself.”
“What did you expect him to say?” Miranda’s voice was kinder, but no less realistic.
How blind had Rashae been?
She wished this was a bad dream. That tomorrow, she’d wake up in Declan’s bed and they’d have a good laugh at her over-active imagination. But that wasn’t the case. He’d lied to her and fucked her over. The only thing she could do now was nurse her wounds in private and hold her head up high in public.
She was on her own.
19.
D
eclan scowled at the phone. Rashae still wasn’t answering.
She’d hung up on him without letting him get a word in edgewise. There was so much more to the story.
Yes. He’d lied. But only in part.
Ayan and John had agreed to hire her, they’d just reneged on the fact. He had the conference call footage to back him up on that.
Christ, this had gone to hell fast.
<
br /> He scrubbed his hand over his jaw and stared out the windows at the historical house on the hill. He should go shovel the walks and work the frustration out—but what if Rashae called? What if she gave him another chance to explain? To talk it out. He’d heard the slur in her voice. He wouldn’t take anything she said while drinking as gospel. Besides, if she called, he didn’t want to be stuck outside, huffing and puffing if she did. And that was if he could even hear the damn ring tone. No, he needed to stay here.
“Doctor? Doctor!”
He glanced at the screen—but it wasn’t Rashae.
It was one of the guys he’d worked with on two successful games.
Declan’s stomach churned. Luke was a good guy, but why the hell was he texting him?
Hey, man, you seen the forums lately? Your new guys are starting fires.
Fucking hell.
Declan stomped over to the desk and opened the laptop. The desktop recorder was still activated. Weird. Normally that shut off when he closed the laptop. Maybe because he’d shut it mid call?
He stopped the program first, then clicked to his browser. Over a dozen notifications waited for him, three from admins and the rest from people he considered professional friends.
He checked the admin messages first. They were polite, concerned but not informative, so he clicked through to the forum link his guy had sent him.
His stomach dropped through the floor.
What was Ayan thinking?
Declan didn’t read the topic. He couldn’t. He jabbed the Skype button and hit dial.
He shouldn’t look. But he was going to anyway.
The Skype call went unanswered.
Declan skimmed the first dozen posts before he started cursing.
That manipulative mother fucker. Ayan knew he read this forum. He’d known, and he’d done this—to what? Shame Declan into shutting up? What was there to gain from putting this out there? If Ayan and John had wanted help, there were people they could speak to in private. Like most designers. Not—this.
Declan started a group chat and began typing, jabbing at the keys so hard two stuck and he had to spend a moment prying them back up.
Ayan, John—I need you to remove the forum post regarding today’s meeting. The only thing this will accomplish is unnecessary backstabbing and rumors, not to mention the embarrassment it is to both of you, and Rashae and I. Yes, over the course of working together, we have |
The cursor blinked. Mocking him.
What were they?
Friends with benefits didn’t sit right with him, but it was what they’d agreed on.
Yes, over the course of working together, we have become more than friends. That is our business. Not yours. And definitely not a public forum. I appreciate your fast response on this matter.
He hit enter and glared at their avatars.
Declan should have listened to his gut. When things started to get wonky, when the two guys refused to understand what it took to make a decent game, he should have walked away. But he’d believed in what they were working on. Because it was what he wanted so badly to make. And now, because of him, Rashae was getting a metric shit ton of crap slung her way and they’d—what? Broken up? He wasn’t willing to accept that without another go of talking to her. Yes, he was a sack of shit, but he’d meant to do right by her, even if he went about it the wrong way.
He was going to insist that the guys pay for the comp images she’d sent them. To cover her working hours at the very least. That much John and Ayan had specifically requested and they could pony up the bucks to pay for it.
He scrolled through the messages, the sickening display of dickdom growing worse with every page.
Why weren’t the admins shutting it down?
Oh...no...
The post on page six was from John.
I believe the entire meeting was recorded, as well. I’d hate to know what else was captured besides our meeting footage.
Declan swallowed. That message was from an hour ago. He thought they were recording porn? How did this go from—our campaign manager is sleeping with our designer—to porn?
The jabs about Rashae’s size, her looks—Declan wanted to reach through the Internet and rip these people’s throats out.
She was a human being, captured in a candid moment she was unprepared for.
No wonder John and Ayan weren’t answering him. They were probably hiding behind their desks, tails between their legs, because they were scum. Worse than scum.
Declan stood, shoving his hands through his hair and paced the cottage, from the front to the back. He had to do something, but what? How did he begin to fix this?
Rashae shoved her red coat into the suitcase. She couldn’t look at it without thinking about snow drifts and hot tea. She’d wear her black coat home and...deal with that one later.
“Have you heard from Declan?” Sam perched on the foot of the bed, watching her.
“No.”
“You should talk to him again. Sober.”
“He’s not going through anything. I’m the one people are calling a fat whore.” Rashae jerked the zipper shut on her carry-on. She should have stopped reading, but after half a bottle of liquor, she’d kept going. If she ever saw Declan again, she was going to ram a tea kettle up his ass. “I’m ready.”
“I think you should stay here,” Sam said.
“No, I have an event in a week, and everyone is flying in. I can’t waste another God damn minute on this anymore. It’s taken too much of my time already.” And brain cells, for that matter. She’d killed a few last night with whiskey and tears.
The last post she had read was from John about how she was a manipulative woman out to ruin them all. Because that made a heaping pile of sense. Declan was just a defenseless puppet in the face of her womanly wiles.
Gag.
“Okay, let me give you a hand.” Sam unfolded her legs and grabbed the smaller suitcase.
Rashae wanted the comfort of her own home, away from her family and her embarrassment. At least there weren’t pictures—or that video—out there. In the scheme of things, yes, being seen by two people she wasn’t all that fond of was hella awful, but Declan’s active deception was ten billion times worse. It burned her to think of laying next to him, brainstorming ideas he knew would never make it to print. He’d taken advantage of her dreams to get what he wanted.
If there was some good to come from all of this, she had a greater sense of what her friends and sister had been through. She would never make light of what happened to Sam ever again. Rashae had been a callous, unfeeling bitch for telling Sam to get over it.
As if.
These were just words, and they hurt.
She couldn’t begin to truly understand the pain Sam had felt.
At least there was a good chance Rashae could keep this knowledge from her parents and Lily. They didn’t need that kind of stress, what with everything else.
They wrestled her bags into their mother’s car and climbed in. Sam got a call from Oliver, who was feeling better and resting at his apartment until Sam could make it over. Rashae blocked out the conversation and clicked through to her email, which she’d ignored over Christmas in favor of lots of hot, sweaty sex.
She frowned at the first message in her inbox.
It was from Declan’s mailing list, which she’d subscribed to ages ago, back when she’d supported a small, two-player card game he’d helped get to shelves.
The HTML email loaded a tad slow.
Rashae glanced up, watching people walk past. Their happy smiles were a stark contrast to the ache she couldn’t escape.
She looked back at the email, painfully curious about what he was up to.
Except...she knew that design.
Her stomach dropped.
Because that design was basically hers.
“What? What’s wrong?” Sam asked.
“That—oh my God. He did not... That bastard had someone copy my work.”
Rashae blin
ked and forced herself to focus on the image, the words.
John and Ayan’s game campaign was live—through Declan’s company.
They had everything ready. From the cyberpunk look, to the box design and cards. She hadn’t finished those, and if she were being honest, they showed the lack of finishing around the edges. But...that was her artwork. And they were cutting her out.
“Let me see.” Sam pulled into a gas station and shifted into park.
Together they looked over the newsletter.
“They started the campaign with your stuff, without telling you?” Sam asked.
“This isn’t my work. It’s a copy.” She’d never finished designing the rest of the characters, all the roles, but someone had used her initial scout design to outfit the rest. All they’d done was change the colors and add some...headpieces. Lazy. It wasn’t bad work—but it wasn’t hers. She’d have brainstormed an original concept for each one.
“What? Can they do that? What did Declan say about it?”
“He has to be in on it. God. I’m such a sucker.”
It was his company.
His newsletter.
She’d given the files to him to share to the other two.
Declan had told her enough of his history that she knew he hadn’t always been on the straight and narrow. Was this whole thing a ploy to use her? To create the artwork and have it copied by a penny artist?
“Hey, I think you should read this.” Sam thrust the phone back into her hands.
“What now?”
Rashae peered at the IM.
It was a link. From Miranda.
What the heck was she doing awake?
The phone rang
“What?” Rashae said.
“Have you seen it?” Miranda’s tone was high, thin. Scared.
“Seen...what?” Rashae swallowed.
“Oh, God—Rashae, I... Don’t look at it.”
Rashae pulled the phone away from her face and tapped the link.
She watched the video loop once, twice, three times.
Those were her breasts.
That was her stomach.
Her hips.
The Gamer and the Geek (Gone Geek, #4) Page 17
