Playing With Trouble

by Chanel Cleeton

  When Jackie had been secretly blogging for Capital Confessions, it had made sense that we’d been mentioned a lot. But when she’d quit, things should have tapered off. It wasn’t like he had more angry daughters out there . . .

  The phone slipped out of my hand, hitting the wood floor with a clunk, as my words to Jackie ran through my mind again . . .

  Kate thinks our father has the answers to what happened to Matt. And deep down, I think she wants to destroy him.

  I remembered all of the posts, all of the mentions about our father, all of the things I’d told Kate, all of the things Kate had said . . .

  Motherfucker.

  I didn’t want to believe it, wanted to keep seeing my sister as the little girl I’d grown up with, but the more I ran over the evidence, the more I listened to my gut, I just knew—

  Kate was behind the Capital Confessions posts.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Apparently Princess Blair is quite the teacher’s pet . . .

  —Capital Confessions blog

  Blair

  I went to Kate’s apartment, my mind racing, remembering the Capital Confessions posts over the last few months. All of the times my private life had made it on the front page. I’d trusted her with my secrets, with everything. And she’d betrayed me.

  I pounded on the door. Kate opened it, her face pale. I looked over her shoulder and saw Jackie standing in the hall. I didn’t wait to be invited in; instead, I strode past my sisters until I reached the living room and faced off against Kate, fury building inside me. I vaguely registered Jackie speaking, but I was too angry to acknowledge the words coming out of her mouth. All of my attention was focused on Kate.

  “What are you doing?”

  Kate met my gaze, guilt seeping out of her. It was no coincidence that Jackie was here.

  Her voice trembled. “What do you mean?”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t notice? That I wouldn’t put it together? How long have you been working for Capital Confessions?”

  She paled even more. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Are you kidding me? That’s your comeback? It’s not what I think? Please enlighten me, because what I think is that you’re so fucking obsessed with ruining our father that you don’t care who you take down in the process.”

  “That’s not true—”

  I was done. Done protecting her. Done worrying about her. Fucking done.

  “Did you have anything to do with the post about me and Gray?” My entire body vibrated with anger.

  “Blair—”

  “Did you have anything to do with the post about me and Gray?” I repeated, my voice rising.

  “I didn’t think they’d post his name. I just told them you were seeing someone. I didn’t say who.”

  “How fucking stupid are you?”

  “Blair—” Jackie interjected.

  I whirled on her. “Stay out of it,” I snapped. “This is between her and me.”

  Kate sank down onto the couch. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

  “You don’t get it, do you? I have to go before the fucking disciplinary board. They were talking about firing him and he quit. He broke up with me because he doesn’t want me tied to all of the shit that’s coming out about him. I love him.”

  Tears spilled down Kate’s cheeks. “I’m sorry. It got out of hand.”

  I was so hurt, so angry. She could apologize all she wanted, but it didn’t change a damn thing.

  “I knew what I was doing could get us in trouble. I knew, and I took the risk anyway. If they expel me, fine. I’ll deal with it. I can get over that.

  “What I can’t get over is the fact that my fucking sister betrayed me, and for what? So you could write a few nasty posts about Dad? Was trying to destroy him really worth it? Because from where I’m standing, all you did was destroy me.

  “Tell me how you’re different from him, because right now you both look exactly the same. You’re both willing to screw over people to get what you want, and you don’t give a shit about the lives you wreck in the process.”

  My voice broke. “Gray had gotten his life together. He was happy and he’d put all of the shit in Chicago behind him. Do you know how hard I worked to make him let me in? To convince him that we could be together?”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t know you loved him,” Kate sobbed. “I fucked up. I know I fucked up.”

  Jackie sat down next to her, wrapping her arm around Kate, her eyes clouded with worry. “Let’s just sit and talk about this calmly. I know you guys are upset, but Kate didn’t mean to hurt you, Blair. You know that.”

  My eyes narrowed. “What would you do if it were Will’s name and reputation splashed all over the gossip columns?”

  Jackie paled.

  “Gray was off-limits.” My gaze snapped to Kate. “As my sister you should have understood that. Even if I could forgive what you did to me, I can’t forgive what you did to him. No one would have cared about him if not for me. He’s on the fucking front page of Capital Confessions because of me. I have to live with that. So whether you meant to hurt me or not, doesn’t really matter. You did. Why?”

  Kate wiped at her face, and some part of me, the part that had protected her my entire life, died at the pain in her eyes and the fact that I’d put it there. We’d fought as kids, and we still had fights now, but nothing like this. There was a rage inside me I couldn’t shut off, and even when it receded, I was reminded of her betrayal, and it came bubbling back up again.

  “How did you start working with Capital Confessions?” My gaze cut to Jackie. “Did you get her involved in this?”

  “I didn’t know,” Jackie answered. “I swear.”

  “Don’t blame Jackie,” Kate interjected. “It was all me. I got the idea last year when she told us that she’d been blogging about our father. When she stepped down, I saw an opportunity.”

  “To smear him.”

  “Among other things.”

  “What other things? Ruining me as well?”

  Kate winced. “No. None of this had anything to do with you.”

  “Except it does, because you used me to get to him.”

  “I gave them stupid pieces of gossip. The editor wanted me to share information about our family. Posts about you got a lot of hits because of everything between you and Thom—”

  “So you saw an opportunity to take advantage of my heartbreak. Fuck you.”

  She flinched. “I didn’t post anything bad. Just stupid stuff about what you wore or who you were dating.”

  “Yes, but that wasn’t ‘stupid stuff’ to me. It was my fucking life.”

  “I didn’t think you’d care. I didn’t think you were serious about him,” Kate whispered.

  “Didn’t think I’d care? You’re my sister. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you. Nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Hell, if you’d asked me, I would have been willing to give you pieces of gossip that I didn’t care about. But not Gray.”

  “I know.”

  “So tell me, what did you get for it all? You wrecked my relationship with the only man I’ve ever really loved, the only man who has ever loved me. Was it worth it? Did you get your thirty pieces of silver? Did you ruin Dad enough?”

  Her mouth tightened and her eyes got hard. “He can’t get away with it.”

  “Newsflash, Kate, he is getting away with it. He always comes out on top. That’s who he is. You aren’t going to win this. I don’t even understand what you’re doing. Do you think this is what Matt would have wanted for you?”

  “Don’t bring Matt into this.” Her eyes dulled as his name crossed her lips. “Don’t go there, Blair.”

  Jackie squeezed her arm, but Kate got to her feet, facing off against me.

  “It’s been over three years, Kate. You’ve been a fucking zombie for three years. He never would have wanted this for you. He would have wanted you to be happy. He would have wanted you to find love again. He would have wanted more for you than this. An
d he never would have thought what you were doing was okay. Never.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me about Matt.”

  “He was my friend, too. I loved him, too. And I knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t have destroyed his life because he was hell-bent on revenge. And he definitely wouldn’t have destroyed the people who loved him.”

  “He killed him.” She screamed the words, her anger splintering through the room.

  Jackie went white as a sheet, and I froze, staring at the sister I’d grown up with, finally realizing that the girl I’d known was gone.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She took a deep breath, her hand shaking. “Someone has been sending me anonymous letters.”

  Oh my god.

  “Matt’s unit was ambushed.”

  “Kate.”

  “It was a setup. And I think Dad knew about it. I think he’s covering it up.”

  I sank down into the armchair, the adrenaline whooshing out of me, my head in my hands. Fuck. Just when I thought things couldn’t be more heinous, they were. Bile rose in my throat as nausea assaulted me.

  I looked up at her, feeling like I was watching two trains about to collide. She had either completely lost it and gone full-on conspiracy theory, or even worse, she was right. Either way she was fucked.

  “If you’re right, you need to stop whatever you’re doing. You need to let this go.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because it isn’t going to bring Matt back. He’s gone. Destroying our father won’t bring Matt back. Neither will finding out what happened to him. All it’s going to do is get you killed.”

  Jackie let out a strangled gasp, and I wondered if she was regretting ever having gotten involved with us. She might have worked in politics, on the surface she might have been more jaded than I was, but this was the world I’d grown up in.

  As much as I hated it, rejected it, it was in my blood, and I knew how this would go down.

  I wasn’t Kate; I wasn’t looking for a battle, all I wanted was to find some semblance of happiness and peace despite our fucked up family. I was not naive. I knew what my father was capable of. And I knew without a doubt in my mind, that if it came down to him or Kate, he would choose himself every fucking time.

  “You could die.”

  She held my gaze and her words killed a part of me.

  “Don’t you get it? I’m already dead. I’ve been dead for three years.”

  I did know. I’d known all along. I just hadn’t wanted to face it. But now it blazed back at me, shining from her eyes, and there was no escaping the truth in her words.

  “You want to bury your head in the sand, fine. I can’t. I’m sorry about Capital Confessions. I never meant to hurt you. If I could take it back, I would. But this is my fight and there’s nothing you can say that will ever change my mind. He drew that line in the sand when he played a role in destroying any chance of happiness I had. So this is all I have. And I won’t give it up for anyone. Not even you.”

  I saw Kate as she had been as a little girl, flashes of us playing, the few times I could rope her into having a tea party with me, me helping her get ready for her first date, watching her try on wedding dresses after Matt proposed. Holding her on the floor of her dorm room while her heart broke.

  It felt like I was losing my sister with every second that passed, but the truth was, I’d already lost her a long time ago.

  I struggled to keep the tears in, dug deep to get the words out.

  “You’re my sister. If there’s ever a moment that you need me, you call me and I will come. I love you. I will always love you. I would give my life for you. And if I could take your pain away, I would.” My voice thickened with unshed tears as hurt stabbed me over and over again.

  “I’m not going to stand by and watch you get yourself killed. I can’t. You’re so wrong if you think you only have your revenge to live for. You have people who love you. You have me. But you’re doing everything you can to self-destruct, and I can’t support that.

  “You think I’m burying my head in the sand because I’m ‘letting our father win,’ but what you don’t realize is that he’s already beaten you. He’s already won and he always will, because he plays by his own set of rules where he doesn’t care if he takes everyone around him down as long as he stays on top.

  “I’ve lived twenty-three years in this world, and I can’t do it anymore. I want peace. I want to be happy. That’s winning, Kate. That’s beating him at his own game. That’s how you honor people who loved you and wanted the best for you. Matt would have gladly given his life for you, would have sacrificed anything to make you happy. He wouldn’t want you to make his death about destroying yourself. And he wouldn’t want you to risk your life.”

  My gaze stopped on Jackie. “Tell her how well revenge worked out for you. What you almost lost. I’m not wrong.”

  She nodded.

  The tears kept coming and it took everything I had to keep them from falling. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t fix Kate, couldn’t bring Matt back, couldn’t make my father a good person. And I’d never failed to be there for Kate, but I couldn’t stand by her for this. I could only pray that one day she would realize that she was throwing any chance of happiness away.

  And that she’d realize it before it killed her.

  “I love you.” A tear slipped past my defenses, dripping down my cheek. “If you call me, I’ll come. You know that, right?”

  She nodded, her eyes red.

  I wrapped my arms around my little sister, holding her close, the love I felt for her eclipsing everything else. The older sister part of me that had always looked out for her screamed to lock her in a room and never let her out. To do anything to protect her. But I couldn’t protect her from herself. There was no rehab for the kind of hatred that burned in her now. She’d shut down for three years, and nothing I’d done since that time had broken through.

  It was up to her now.

  I let her go.

  Gray

  I opened the front door and froze.

  Blair stood in front of me, some version of Blair I’d never seen before.

  Her eyes were red, her makeup streaked. Her clothes, her hair, everything about her seemed disheveled, like she’d just been dragged through the bowels of hell.

  Rain fell around her, and she stood on my doorstep without an umbrella, her hair soaked, her clothes plastered against her small frame. She trembled.

  “What happened? Are you okay?” I opened the door all the way. “Come inside. You have to be freezing.”

  “No.”

  “Blair—”

  “I’m not staying. I just left Kate’s. She was behind the Capital Confessions article.”

  Shock slammed me. I’d never considered her sister. I couldn’t even imagine the pain she must be in.

  “I came to apologize to you for having your name dragged through the mud,” she continued. “It never would have happened if you hadn’t been involved with me. You didn’t deserve to have your career trashed again and I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t care about my career, Blair. I care about you. I don’t give a fuck about what people say about me. But I care when it hurts you.”

  She gave me her contempt with her flashing brown eyes. “I am so fucking sick of people moving me around like they’re playing chess and I’m a fucking pawn. So sick of people telling me how I should feel, or what’s best for me, or making decisions without consulting me. And you know what, it’s my own fault. I should have stood up for myself a long time ago.”

  I blanched as she hurled fire at me, each word hitting my heart.

  “I love you. I will always love you. It will always be you. But I’ve watched my sister spend the last three years of her life destroying herself because she lost the love of her life, and maybe it makes me weak, but I don’t want to be like that.

  “I’m willing to fight for us, but I can’t do it if I’m fighting on my own. And I won’t figh
t you. I want to be happy. I want to have kids. I want a future with a man who will treat me the way I deserve to be treated.”

  She gave me an image of a future I’d barely dared to dream of.

  “If you can’t see that I choose you, that I don’t care about your past, if you can’t love me enough to put your past behind us, then you were right all along, you don’t deserve me. I’m not asking you to change. Not asking you to give me more than you’re able to give. I’m just asking you to give me your heart and trust that I would never do anything to hurt you. But I can’t give you the life you deserve, the life we deserve, if you don’t trust me. And I’m all out of plays here.”

  She leaned forward and placed her lips on my cheek and I froze, caught off guard by the motion and the feel of her body close to mine again.

  She pulled away and met my gaze.

  “I wanted it to be you. I still want it to be you. But if it’s not, I’m not going to spend the rest of my life being miserable because I lost you. I deserve a family. A husband. Children. I’m not going to give that up. I’m not going to settle.” Her voice shook and tears fell down her cheek. “I will always love you. But I can’t keep waiting around for you to love me. I deserve more.”

  She did. She deserved the world.

  She gave me one last look, and I couldn’t help but feel like she was memorizing my face, and then the light that I’d seen in her eyes every time she looked at me flickered out.

  “Good-bye, Gray.”

  I couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but watch her walk away, until she was nothing more than a blur I could barely make out through the tears that rained down my cheeks.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The Senate Armed Services Committee met today . . .

  —Capital Confessions blog

  Blair

  I scoured Capital Confessions for a week. My name didn’t show up once. I finally sent Kate a text thanking her for keeping my name out of the press. She didn’t respond.