by Mallory Fox
I end driving around the lake, using the calming affect of the turns and gear changes to sooth the anger out of me. By the time I’m on my third lap, I’m feeling much better and decide to take a detour into the town to buy something nice for dinner.
Maybe I’ll cook something for Flick. A peace offering.
Seth can go screw himself.
I’m just parking up in Main Street when I see Seth’s car parked outside one of the lake front restaurants. I was right… the bastard is on a date. Unable to help myself, I walk towards the restaurant and around the outside, to where entrance to the terrace would be. Part of me doesn’t wish to know who my step-brother is seeing, but a bigger part really does.
I don’t see him at first, not straight away. The restaurant is busy and plenty of the tables are couples. He’s not hard to spot though and I’m not surprised to see him with blonde. Of course he prefers blondes.
He’s wearing the crisp white shirt he was ironing this morning. It sets off the blue of eyes, making him look younger. He’s smiling, all warm and interested.
I still don’t know who he’s with. When is she going to turn around?
Finally, she does and my heart is in my mouth.
There, in the middle of an expensive and exclusive restaurant, holding hands, smiling together, is my step-brother and my best friend.
After a few minutes, Seth leaves the table and as though sensing me watching, Flick turns to look my way. I duck into a bush before she sees me. She probably wasn’t looking for me at all but it felt like she was searching for something.
Seth returns after a few minutes and they resume their date.
I can’t watch anymore. He isn’t mine I know that, but the thought of them both together makes my heart drop and roll about like lead in my stomach. I need to be anywhere but here. I’m also in a bush. A fucking bush. Now who’s covered in leaves and dirt?
I make it to my car and drive home without throwing up.
I’m so shaken at what I’ve just seen that I don’t even take off my jacket or turn on the light when I enter the house. I just sit in the dark stare at the lake from the sofa. Eventually, I rouse myself and shower and change, enough to go into the garage and come out with the house security system booklet that tells me how to override a lock should I get locked out of a room in the house by accident.
It takes me two minutes to read the section I need and ten minutes to break into Seth’s room. My first thought is ‘this room is too neat’. It must be Seth’s military upbringing, everything is neatly folded. Even his dirty laundry is neat and tidy.
Since the room wasn’t Seth’s to begin with, hardly anything in it is personal to him. Only his clothes in the closet and a duffel bag on top of the wardrobe scream Seth. Even the bedside table is empty, devoid of anything remotely Seth-like. There is nothing in the room that tells me anything I don’t already know or can help me figure him out.
Defeated, I slam his door shut enough to make the whole house vibrate, then re-lock it using the system. Hopefully he won’t know I’ve even been in there.
Hours later, when I’m in bed and wide a wake, staring at the ceiling. I hear them both come in, talking in hushed whispers and laughing. Only one bedroom door, Flick’s, opens and closes.
Then nothing but the sound of silence and the ticking of my own watch next to my ears.
Avoiding the two people you live with is easier when they are actively trying to avoid you.
I’m not bothered. Seth is a grown man and can date who he wants and Flick deserves a good guy. I’m not sure Seth is a good guy but he’s better than all of her ex boyfriends put together.
Even if he is suing me.
That said, I don’t want to talk to either of them for a while, so I carry on going to lectures and the library alone, and when at home stay as much as I can in my room. Seth only shows himself in lectures just as the lecturer starts, and Flick doesn’t show at all to the onc class we share.
I now don’t want to change tracks, but I’m not sure how to retract an application.
I haven’t heard from the admin team on my course transition anyway, I drop into see Casey after lectures but she’s not there and it’s obvious the new girl doesn’t know me because she asks for my name. When she can’t find it, I start to worry. I know I sent it by email. I ask her to check again which she does, but after the third time of asking she tells me to come back next week.
I’m still working on assignments with Seth by splitting them in half. We’re due to meet again to split the next batch but I really don’t want to talk to him so find a way around it by emailing him. He takes it in his stride and emails me back and we continue, much to my annoyance, like nothing has happened.
I finally come face to face with Flick, lugging her collection of luggage to the front door of the lake house after a week or so of tiptoeing around each other. She glares at me as though it’s my fault we’re no longer talking. It probably is.
“You’re moving out?” I say, as a matter of fact, my face nothing more than a blank mask. I’ll be damned if I show her how much this hurts.
“Only for a little while. It’s as awkward as hell around here at the moment.”
“If it makes you feel better,” I say softly.
“Don’t be like that. You know, you could have avoided all this if you’d have just told me.”
I go to say something like, I could say the same to you.
Instead, all that comes out is…
“I didn’t want to worry you.” I don’t try to keep the sarcasm dripping from my voice though. That would be too hard.
Chapter 14
Seth
Fighting Pearl is like fighting a hurricane, it’s only when you get to the calm in the centre that everything begins to make sense.
But getting to that calm is the hardest part.
When she doesn’t show up to our study session in the library, I take a walk around campus. Enjoying the freedom of just walking around.
This place is nothing like Blackheath Military Academy. This is a haven compared to the four am starts, one-minute cold showers, never-ending laps and drills, and the secret hazing rituals that would make even the strongest wish they were dead.
My bike is parked off campus, about two minutes walk on a road that wraps around the lake. I see her first, leaning against my ride like she owns it. Hazel eyes searching, lips like sugar, hair loose in the wind, legs for endless days.
I so badly want to spread those legs again.
I want to taste her, touch her, reach around and thread my fingers through her silky soft hair and make her beg for me again. We’re alone here. How easy would be to bend her over the wall overlooking the lake and break her until she screams my name.
Too easy.
She eyes me warily as she gets to her feet and produces something from her bag. A piece of paper.
“What’s this?” I take it from her and read it as she confirms what’s written in black and white print.
“An occupation order.”
I look at her with a mask of disinterest, one that doesn’t betray the thoughts raging around inside my head right now. I take her piece of paper and hand it back to her.
She frowns. “That’s for you… to keep.”
“Now why would I want it? You worked hard for this. Favors don’t come cheap. You should keep it.”
She snatches it back.
“Just stay away from me,” she shouts as she storms off, wind whipping her hair around her like a broken halo.
In the distance she turns to look back at me, eyes full of murder, lips parted like sin. If I still loved her, if I still needed Pearl…
that look would slay me dead.
Chapter 15
Pearl
The lake house is all mine.
Seth hasn’t returned so I start to relax. Maybe he’s not going to come back.
That would be ideal.
But I doubt it.
Calling a favor from Levi is not what I’
m about, but I do believe in going in fast and furious… and being first. I feel bad about it but I’m not about to let Seth take over every aspect of my life. At least leave me something solid and grounding.
Not like last time, leaving me with humiliation and heartache.
Anyway, the order states only that he stay away from the house we jointly own. Since he’s suing me, it’s only right that he not share my living space. It’s hard enough having lectures with him sitting a few rows away.
But.
He no longer sits next to me.
Small blessings, Seth actually does want to sit near the front. Moving to back where most of the forth years hang out makes the Denise and Jennifer happy, so in a way I kill both birds with one stone.
And I would spontaneously combust if I had to endure him sitting so close, all day every day. Each second I seem to spend in his presence sends my emotions and hormones into hyperdrive. Flashbacks of him bending me over, taking what he wants while I have no control or say, haunt me when I least expect it.
I’m such a mess, spacing out in the middle of lectures, daydreaming of him, that I had to take control.
Seth can’t live with me anymore. He just can’t.
Occasionally, I find my eyes drawn to him, mostly while he’s deep in thought and taking notes.
He doesn’t look at me though.
It aggravates me that now that he’s here and I’ve played my hand, he doesn’t seem interested in me at all. I thought he was out to get revenge but maybe he’s just at La Roche to get the qualifications he needs to please the board, to do what he said he would do and take back his share, a bigger share than I wanted to give him, of my dear Darlington.
Call me a fool, but that’s what I deduce the first couple of weeks back after mid-term break.
I should be so lucky.
Chapter 16
Pearl
I’m not alone for long. Gabby, with her Italian designer labels and raven black hair, arrives early, back from her insta honeymoon with her insta husband.
As much as I’ve missed her, explaining what happened with Flick and Seth is just too much. I just can’t get the image of them both at the restaurant out of my mind any time I think of either of them.
Gabby hugs me as soon as she walks through the front door and I let her.
“If you don’t want to stay, I understand.”
She wrinkles her nose at me. “Don’t be silly. I’m staying and that’s that. It will be like old times.”
And it is, for about a day.
Students whispering as I walk past doesn’t bother me. I’m used to it. When everyone wanted to be me or be part of my inner circle, they whispered. Except now they seems to snigger when they do it. More confusing is the more recent wolf whistle. One guy even pinches my butt as I walk to into the library.
But it all comes to light when I see Claudine waiting for me when I enter the campus restaurant.
I don’t usually eat here these days, but I’m tired and it’s lunchtime and I just want food I don’t have to think about.
A few girls I don’t recognize are with her. All of them are smirking, like they know something I don’t. I was hoping to run in and grab a salad between study periods, but seeing her at the entrance with her hand on her hip is enough to make me want to turn around and walk back.
I hold my head up as I walk straight past, trying to ignore her.
“Slut.”
Now that I can’t ignore. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“I did, and that’s why I’m confused. I thought I heard you call me a ‘slut’?”
Claudine grins, like she’s won already. “Because that’s what you are, Pearl. You’re just a stupid slut who will be a nobody by the time Seth finishes with you. Your high-and-mighty, too-good-for-anyone-here, bull shit is over. Go back to the gutter where you belong.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, did no one tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
She reaches into her bag and pulls out her phone, pressing play on a video as she hold it up to me. Loud panting and moaning from the video fills the restaurant, drawing all eyes onto us if they weren’t already. It’s the video if me with two footballers.
Correction…
It’s the video someone faked of me with two footballers. And it’s been posted online for all to see. And it has had millions of views already.
Everything falls away as a flare of panic rises in my chest. I push it down. Now is not the time to lose it. And so what if that video of me is viral. It’s not real…
“That’s fake.”
“You have a huge fan base subscribed to your channel of a wanton whore I see.” Claudine says, disregarding my comment. She takes her phone and scrolls through it, picking another video at random and playing it. Holding it up. “What about this one? Is this one fake?”
It’s a dark video, grainy but you can just make out that it’s me lying on the wedding altar moaning with my skirt hitched up around my waist. It’s only when the guy comes up from between my legs that you can see it’s Levi. Then he proceeds to fuck me hard on the altar.
The tightness in my chest won’t go away as I watch the Levi pound the me in the video senseless. It didn’t happen, not like that. All I can do is shake my head.
“It didn’t happen like that.”
“Maybe,” Claudine sneers, “you were so out of it you don’t remember?” The girls around her snigger.
I narrow my eyes at her, taking in the face of each person laughing beside her. Remembering what they look like, if not who they are.
“They’re fake. All of them. And I can prove.” I step closer to Claudine so I’m practically in her face. “Whoever it was who uploaded them, trust me, I’ll be doing them for damages.”
“I highly doubt you afford two lawsuits at the same time,” she scoffs. “Poor Davis, he’s going to wonder why you rejected him now when you’ve slept with half the country. Good job he didn’t, he might have caught something.”
“Fuck off Claudine, or do I have to make you?”
“Resorting to violence? Oh my how the mighty have fallen.” With one last smirk she saunters off, her new posse in tow.
Without Sully to call, I’m at a loss to do about the videos. I end up calling Levi.
“I need your help…”
“I have seen the channel. Very creative, non?”
“Can you take it down.”
“What’s in it for me Ma Cherie? I can’t keep doing you favors for free.”
“Screw you, I’ll do it myself.”
By the end of the week, the channel is blocked. With a little research and the right contacts in the media world, anything is possible. But the damage is done. There isn’t one place in campus where I’m not approached and propositioned for sex by a male student. Even the lecturers seem to leer at me as I sit in class.
It also seems the paparazzi have twigged to the story and have started hounding the exterior of campus so I can’t leave, I escape to the library. If only for a moment of peace before I have to brace the outside world.
Unfortunately, Seth had the same idea. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in the library since the first week we split assignments. Is he being hounded too? Is that why he’s here?
I keep my head down as he walks over, not wanting to see him never mind interact with him. He doesn’t give me a choice. The bastard has the audacity to come and sit opposite on the same table. I can hear him shuffling around the other side, taking his books out, clicking his damn pen.
Seething with rage, I slam my books closed and finally look up and acknowledge him. He’s staring back when I do, with a look on his face like I’ve lost my goddamn mind.
“Why, after everything, do you feel the need to irritate me even further by making so much noise. We’re in a library for a reason.”
I’d forgotten how handsome he is. Tousled, dark hair and tempting eyes regard me across the table. There’s no breaki
ng storm behind his eyes today. He’s not assessing me as potential prey. He’s just looking.
“You’re not what I expected.”
The words catch me off guard and for a second or two I don’t know how to answer.
“What do you mean?”
He pauses before he speaks, his eyes burning holes in my heart as he does so easily.
“I thought… no I expected you to fold.”
I don’t understand his comment so I don’t try to. Since the order from the crown court, and hearing Seth and Flick sneaking back to her bedroom night after night, I’ve had little sleep since Monaco. In fact, I’m so sleep deprived and loaded up on caffeine, that whenever I read a page words seem to float off of it.
“Then you expected wrong. Now piss off, I have an event to plan.”
When he doesn’t leave, I do the next best thing and pack up my stuff. I’m annoyed when he does the same.
“Do you need a lift? I saw you left your car at home today.”
“No thank you, I’ll call Henry.”
“It’s Henry’s day off.”
I curse under my breath because he’s right. Henry takes Fridays off and so I usually drive. I left my car because I wanted to walk in and clear my head, that and my driveway was being stalked by reporters this morning. Going in by foot was the only was a way to avoid them.
“I can give you a lift, it's no problem. We’re going the same way.”
“About that,” I say, cooly. “I’ll be moving out next term.”
His cocks a brow. “You’re giving me the lake house?”
I clench my teeth. “No, I’m moving back into halls. So I can focus on studying.”
“Until then, let me drive you. It’s no big deal.”
“I don’t ride bikes.”
“I have my car today.”
Like hell I’m getting into a car with him. I hate him. Gorgeous or not he’s a sneaky bastard and while I can’t prove it was him with the videos, he was the only person who could figure out the security lock thingy like I did and steal the files from under my mattress.