by L. A. Sable
Seductive Filthy Royal
L. A. Sable
Contents
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
17. Epilogue
Also by L. A. Sable
About the Author
Chapter 1
List of Blackmail Suspects
1. Chloe Devlin
2. The Female Diamonds: Maisie Howard, Grace Khan, Ocean Foley
3. Adult Alumni? - But why?
4. Dean Felton
5. Someone else we’re too stupid to consider
Just keep breathing, damnit.
Easier said than done when you’re being blackmailed.
I hold the piece of paper in my hand. On it, we’ve written anyone who could be responsible for creating the video. The list of people who had access to the Diamond Lounge and the ability to plant cameras is small. And we haven’t even begun to think about potential motives, even though we’ve been at this for the better part of an hour.
It’s too hard to concentrate on anything but a mental image of that video playing on a loop behind my eyes. Every breath I take burns in my chest as I glare across the room at the guys, who look back at me with various stages of anger, confusion and fear on their faces.
I’m staring my own destruction in the eye and all I can think about is how it felt to have their hands on my body.
We are so fucked.
They’re all waiting for me to do or say something to decide what happens next. Problem is, I have no fucking idea where to go from here. Part of me wants to kick them out of my room, crawl under the covers and never come out. But I also want to burn this school to the ground with every in it. Fear and Rage, two emotions that are difficult to reconcile.
Jayden’s brow creases as he opens his mouth to say something then closes it again.
Asher glares up at the ceiling as if it has done something to personally offend him. But anger is always his dominant emotion, regardless of the circumstances.
Kai has his eyes closed as he leans against the far wall of my bedroom, but his body is alert.
It’s Lukas who steps forward and puts a comforting hand on my arm, hesitant as if he hasn’t already done way more than that.
And kindness just makes me want to cry.
I willingly walked into that room and drank something that could have come from anywhere. And I got in the hot tub even though I knew something wasn’t right. Whoever set up those cameras just gave me enough rope to hang myself.
But I’d been the one who allowed it to happen.
“Can’t you idiots see she’s fucking traumatized.” Lukas stares down into my face, expression full of concern. “Do you want us to go?”
Do I want them to go?
I want things that don’t make sense together. I want them to go and I want them to stay. I want to disappear and I want to rise above it all like a queen. I want to be someone that it isn’t possible to be. And I don’t feel traumatized, there isn’t a word for the swirl of emotions in my head. Is it trauma when something you’ve fantasized about happens in real life, even when you didn’t ask for it?
But you also didn’t say no.
We’ve been standing here in silence for at least ten minutes, frozen as the reality of that video sinks in for all of us.
“Maybe we should go to the dean,” Kai murmurs with a sigh, eyes still closed. “Felton isn’t exactly the most useful guy in the world, but he might be able to do something.”
“You saw the message,” Lukas counters. “If we breathe a word of this to anyone, then that video gets made public. And for all you know Dean Felton is in on it.”
Kai waves off that concern. “Maybe I don’t care. You ever heard that you shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists? Let them release the video.”
“We can’t risk that,” Lukas says, eyes narrowing as he turns toward his brother. “Some of us actually have reputations to protect.”
“I guess we can’t all be the perfect son.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to be mean?”
“Nah, man. I get it. I’ve embarrassed the family enough that there isn’t any lower to go, right?”
“It’s my fault that you never do what dad asks you to do?”
“But you’re always there to lick his boots when he wants, right?”
Lukas starts toward Kai and I step in between them. “That’s enough. Seriously. We have more important things to deal with than whatever this is about.”
I’ve never seen the twins go at each other like this. The tension simmering under the surface would fascinate me under any other circumstances. They’re supposed to be the stable ones among us, but the stress of the situation is getting to everyone.
My heart beats too hard in my chest as another flashback rolls over me. I can feel and hear everything like I’m back in that moment. For a dizzying second, it’s impossible to separate the memory from reality.
“Maybe you guys should go,” I say, fighting to keep my voice from shaking. The room spins slowly around me and I wonder if I’m about to pass out.
With each passing minute, the reality of it sinks further into my psyche. There is a sex tape of me floating around and I have no idea who has their hands on it. I thought the worst thing I’d have to worry about at Black Lake was not fitting in with the rich kids and failing my classes. But since arriving, I’ve been psychologically tortured, hit by a bus and now blackmailed with every woman’s worst nightmare.
I don’t want to think about what might come for me next.
Lukas leads me to the bed without needing to be asked and helps me sit down.
“We need to figure this out,” Jayden declares, pushing off the wall. “This video gets out and I can kiss my career goodbye.”
“Or the opposite.” Kai’s voice is bland. “Hollywood loves a good scandal.”
Jayden grimaces. “Not this kind of scandal. This is the #metoo stuff that’ll get me blacklisted.”
They talk over my head as I stare down at the nervous hands twisting in my lap. I was supposed to blow back onto campus this term like a force of nature, making everyone tremble in my path. But right now, I feel like a lost little girl who just wants someone to take her away from it all.
My back aches, paradoxically hurting even worse now that I’m sitting down. The last of my painkillers is in a drawer by the bed. I desperately want to reach for them, but resist the urge. My supply is quickly dwindling and I don’t have a way to get more. The pills don’t even take the pain away completely the way they used to, instead only making things manageable. I’m terrified of how it will feel when I don’t have even that small amount of relief.
But that’s a problem for another day, just another line item for the shit list.
Forcing myself to take deep breaths before I pass out, I finally look up to take them all in. Fate has somehow bound us together in circumstances that feel impossible, but I won’t just roll over and give up without a fight.
“We need to focus on the list of everyone who has access to that room,” I tell them as I stand back up, clenching my fists against a sudden stab of pain in my lower back. “Students, faculty, even the janitorial staff. All of them are potential suspects.”
“And what if we do figure it out?” Jayden asks, sounding frustrated. He seems
more concerned than the other guys, which makes sense considering his high profile. Just because he’s been questioning whether he wants to return to acting doesn’t mean he wants that choice made for him because of a scandal. “What are we going to do then?”
Kai makes a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh. “Make them give us the tape, obviously.”
“And we're going to do that how, exactly?” Lukas asks the question this time.
Kai holds up his fingers and counts off one by one. “Threaten them with the police, find dirt and blackmail them back, not to mention violence. That always works.”
“Those all sound like really great ideas.” Jayden’s voice is laden with sarcasm. “Easy to pull off, too.”
Kai rolls his eyes. “I’m not hearing any better ideas.”
It’s impossible not to notice that Asher hasn’t said anything. He’s been standing in the same corner of the room for the last hour and staring off into space like none of us are even here with him.
The look on his face is inscrutable, almost bored, which means that Asher is at his most dangerously unpredictable. For all I know, he’s the one who arranged all of this. I abandon that idea as nonsensical the moment that I have it, but that doesn’t mean I trust him not to do something crazy.
“What do you think we should do?” I ask, addressing Asher directly for the first time.
Asher waits a little too long to shift his gaze to meet mine, as if he enjoys making me wait. I cross my arms over my chest and forced myself to look unbothered. Even now, he is still compelled to play games.
Makes me wonder how much of the attitude is just a defense mechanism and how much of him is just an asshole.
“What do I think you should do?” He draws out the question like he’s savoring it, but the look in his eyes is intense as his gaze meets mine. “Give in. There’s no fighting this.”
His opinion shouldn’t matter any more than the dirt under my shoes. But I can’t stop the wave of desolation and hopelessness that rolls over me. Heat burns behind my eyes as I fight the infuriating urge to cry.
“Real nice,” Lukas snaps, turning on Asher. “If you don’t have anything helpful to say, why don’t you get the hell out of here?”
“Gladly.” Asher pushed off of the wall with his hands still stuck in the pockets of his uniform slacks. “This little meeting of the minds was getting boring as hell.”
He shoves open the door without looking back and lets it slam shut behind him, the sound loud enough to make me wince.
“When did he become such an asshole?” I murmur to myself. It’s a rhetorical question that pops out of my mouth before I really think through what I’m saying. These guys are supposed to be Asher’s closest friends, after all.
“Around the time you got here,” Kai says, voice droll. “Probably not a coincidence.”
I don’t want to talk about whatever change of personality resulted in Asher from my presence. Or what it might mean.
“Maybe we should just table this for now.” Between my aching back and the memory of what we had done together, I’m more exhausted than I’ve ever been in my life. Both physically and mentally. “I need to get ready for class.”
Lukas looks at me like he wants to argue but I just shake my head at him. I appreciate his protective instinct, but I need to be alone right now. My feelings about this situation are too difficult to tease apart with an audience watching. I watch them go, even as part of me wants to beg them to stay.
And I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to face the rest of the school.
I recognize logically that releasing the video won’t serve any purpose if someone is hoping to blackmail us. Once the video is out, our blackmailer no longer has any leverage.
But every time someone whispers or gets caught staring at me, I’m going to assume they’ve seen it. Someone has that video, and that’s enough for me to want to crawl inside of a hole and die.
Whatever asshole first invented revenge porn deserves to rot in hell.
I try to sleep, but my mind whirls. But the pain is too much to deal with, both physically and mentally. There’s no way I can make it through the rest of the day without relief. Even the thought of just getting up and walking to the dining hall for breakfast feels like more than I can possibly manage.
I only have the one bottle of pills left in my nightstand drawer, kept deliberately close to where I can reach it at night when the pain is always at its worst. Like always, I spill the tablets out onto my palm and count them. I always hope there are more there than I’m expecting, but that’s never the case.
It’s a problem that will only get bigger, but I have to put off thinking about it for at least one more day.
A knock on the door startles me out enough that some pills spill from my hand and hit the floor, rolling out of sight under the bed.
My gaze flies to the knob, where the lock hasn’t been turned. I didn’t lock it after the guys left. So now I have the choice between rushing to lock it before whoever is on the other side busts right in or searching for the pills that I can’t afford to lose.
“Just a minute,” I yell, dropping to the floor on my knees as stabbing pain shoots up my back.
But my shout either isn’t audible or whoever is on the other side doesn’t care because the door is already swinging open.
Asher stands there, sunlight glowing behind him like a halo. All I want to do is punch him right in that beautiful face. It simply isn’t fair that he can have the face of an angel and the soul of a demon, both at the same time. That’s assuming, of course, he has a soul at all.
“What do you want?” I snap the question, fighting the urge to run my fingers over the floorboards in search of the medication that fell. I hate that I’m more than willing to eat them off the floor, which just makes me disgusted with myself. And even angrier at him for being here to see it. “And can you shut the door, preferably as you leave?”
He makes a big show of closing the door with a dramatic sweep of his arm and then turns to lean against it. “Better?”
“You forgot the part where you piss off,” I tell him, shifting up to rest on my heels because being on my knees is hell on my back. The remaining pills are still in my hand and I need to put them back in the bottle before the sweat from my palm breaks down the coating. But I don’t want Asher to know what I was doing so I shift that hand behind my back as I glare up at him. “I need to get ready for class.”
“You don’t look like you’re in a hurry,” he replies, raising one eyebrow. “And I’d love to go, but I’m on orders.”
He holds up his phone so I can see there’s another anonymous message emblazoned across the screen.
“What did they tell you to do?” I ask, hating that there’s a tremor in my voice. “Something bad?”
“The worst,” he confirms. Then laughs at whatever expression is on my face. “Relax. I’m just supposed to walk you to class.”
That’s the first real instruction that we’ve gotten form our blackmailer. It doesn’t make sense that it would be something so simple. “Why?”
He has the nerve to laugh. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
My gaze passes over the floor around me but I don’t see any of the fallen medication. “Nothing about this is funny, you know.”
“You can laugh or you can cry, won’t change anything either way. And everything is funny if that’s how you decide to look at it.”
“Maybe if you took something seriously every once in a while, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Don’t blame me for this. You’re the one who wanted to be Queen of the Diamonds. Now you know. Being at the top just makes you a bigger target.”
As if I need a reminder of that. “I don’t want to talk about his. I need to finish getting ready. Can you just wait outside for a minute?
“Why? You look ready to me. Get off the floor and lets go.”
“Just give me a fucking minute, okay.”
But instead of lea
ving, Asher’s face grows more curious as he steadily regards me. His gaze moves to the empty pill bottle on the nightstand and his expression turns knowing. “Looking for something?”
“None of your damn business.”
“I’m the last person who’s going to judge anybody for anything.” He spreads his arms wide as if to say look at who I am. For once, there isn’t even a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Are you running out? Because that would explain the attitude.”
“I’m not out.” Giving up on trying to being secretive, I grab the bottle and carefully drop the pills in my hand inside. I can’t stop myself from counting the pings as each one hits the bottom, the number depressingly small. “I just dropped some that I need to find.”
His expression is very carefully neutral. “Want me to help?”
“No. Just stay over there.” The last thing I want is for Asher to be nice to me. Whatever impulse drives him to be decent never lasts long, and it makes me forget how much I hate him. “I thought you didn’t care if the video goes out. Why are you bothering to do what you’re told?”
Asher doesn’t immediately answer. And despite my insistence that he leave me the hell alone, he drops to his knees beside me and looks under the bed for any pills that might have rolled in that direction.
“You wouldn’t believe that I’m doing it for you.” He picks up a pill between his forefinger and thumb, holding it up to the light. For a terrifying moment, I think he isn’t going to hand it over but then he passes it to me. “So I guess, you can make up a reason.”
“And you’ve given me about a hundred different reasons not to trust you.” I hold out the bottle as he drops another pill into it, trying not to think about the fact that they’ve been rolling on the dirty floor. When the pain gets bad enough, a little dust won’t matter to me. “You really don’t care if people see that video?”