by Holly Renee
The Fall of a God
Holly Renee
Copyright © 2021 by Holly Renee.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictional manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, or events is purely coincidental.
The Fall of a God
Cover Model: Sergio Carvajal
Cover Designer: Cassie Chapman with Opulent Designs
Editor: Ellie McLove
Proofread: Rumi Khan
www.authorhollyrenee.com
Also by Holly Renee
THE BOYS OF CLERMONT BAY SERIES
The Touch of a Villain
The Fall of a God
THE GOOD GIRLS SERIES
Where Good Girls Go to Die
Where Bad Girls Go to Fall
Where Bad Boys are Ruined
THE ROCK BOTTOMS SERIES
Trouble with the Guy Next Door
Trouble with the Hotshot Boss
Trouble with the Fake Boyfriend
THE WRONG PRINCE CHARMING
The Wrong Prince Charming
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For Ramzi.
I don’t need to tell you what you mean to me.
The best partner in crime I could ever hope for.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
The End
Epilogue
What’s Next?
THANK YOU
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Josie
This town was filled with monsters who were parading as men.
But they all revealed who they were eventually.
And the rest of us paid the price.
I thought I knew where the snakes lied. I thought I was prepared, but I was a fool. Beck Clermont was the worst of them all. He had wound his way around every part of me. He had me completely trapped before he sank in his fangs, and I was helpless.
I slipped into his plan as if I was meant to be there. He knew the part he was playing well. He was the villain, and I was the girl he fucked over without a second thought.
It had been all I could think about when I took the extra time getting dressed and doing my hair this morning. I had pulled my skirt the tiniest bit higher and lined my eyes almost unnoticeably darker, but those small things fueled me.
If he wanted to make me out to be a whore, then I would fuck up every part of his world.
I would be the whore who fucked him out of everything he ever wanted.
It had been a week since he posted the video of us on Instagram.
An Instagram account that had apparently been run by the Clermont Bay Prep baseball team for years. That was what Allie had told me. It had been passed down to the captain through the years, and it had been used to rate girls in the school based on how hot the team thought they were.
According to Allie, the good thing was that only those who followed the page saw the video. But it was still seen by someone other than Beck or myself, and that was too much.
I had given Beck more of myself than I had ever given anyone before, I had given him my virginity, and I was horrified.
I was angry. Furious. I felt insane with rage.
I never wanted to see Beck Clermont or his smug fucking face again.
But my father insisted that I go back to school. He demanded it. It didn’t matter that I had begged and pleaded to be moved to Clermont Bay High. He would have none of it.
His daughter wouldn’t be going to public school.
Because he apparently cared about what his daughter did or didn’t do now. From what I overheard when he and Amelia were arguing, he wouldn’t allow his family to be disrespected like that. He considered it a slap in the face.
I had never seen him so angry in my entire life. I had never feared him.
But he scared me when we left Beck’s house. He hid none of his anger as we had climbed into his car with Beck’s betrayal the only thing I could think of and my betrayal the only thing he could.
Lucas held me while I cried.
While my father yelled at me about how stupid I had been. I knew that I deserved it. I had been stupid. I had been a complete idiot.
But I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. I didn’t need to be told that trusting Beck had been a mistake. That fact was clear to everyone.
They all had a front-row seat to what he had done to me. I didn’t even know if you could call it betrayal because he knew what he was doing the entire time. I was just a part of his plan. Nothing else. It didn’t matter that I had allowed myself to think differently.
He had never been anything more.
I just wanted my mother. She would have been disappointed in me too, I had no doubt about that, but she would have known how to fix this. She would have known how to help me.
And it wouldn’t have been in the same way my father helped.
He had the video shut down within a couple of hours of it being put up, and he was on the phone with his lawyers before we had even arrived back at his house. I didn’t know what he thought that would do.
The damage Beck had done could never be repaired.
That fact was evident as I walked through the halls of Clermont Bay Prep. From the way everyone looked at me and the whispers that echoed off the walls, I had no doubt that every student in this school had seen the video.
I had probably watched it a hundred times myself, and every time I just became angrier and angrier. Every time, I felt like I was sinking, and I would never find my way back to the surface.
The video had no sound, but it was clear as day what was happening. I was lying on the edge of the pool wearing nothing but a soaking wet bra. Beck’s body blocked the camera from seeing most of mine, but it didn’t matter.
His head was buried between my legs. Legs that were spread completely open for him. My fingers gripped his hair as I begged him for more.
You didn’t need sound to know that.
It was written all over my face.
The way I wanted him was in every single move my body made.
The video was short, only twenty-three seconds, to be exact, but it was plenty long enough for everyone to see precisely what was happen
ing between us.
What was happening right in front of me that I couldn’t see.
Their view was far clearer than my own. They could see the score plastered in front of them, and all I could see was him.
I was just a pawn in his game. The lethal piece he needed for his fucked up sense of revenge.
And what he had said in his room? That Lucas had done the same to Frankie, that he had done far worse. I couldn’t hear him over my anger at the time, but it was practically the only thing I had thought about since.
If Lucas had done what he said, if he had assaulted Frankie, I couldn’t imagine that he would still be living the life that he was. He was totally unaffected, and I couldn’t comprehend how something like that could happen with no repercussions.
When I had brought it up to my father, he had shut it down far quicker than he ever could the video. He had already been angry about what had happened, but he was furious that I even dared believe what Beck had said.
And I knew why.
This boy had just ruined my life. He had literally just fucked me, took my trust and my virginity, and I was still listening to what he said.
I was still trusting him over someone that was supposed to be my blood.
Beck was a liar. He was cruel and vile, and I shouldn’t care if he looked sincere when he said that he hadn’t sent the video out. I knew it was a lie even though my heart wanted to believe otherwise.
Every part of me wanted what happened to be some sort of nightmare. I didn’t want to believe that Beck was capable of such cruelty, especially not after I had been falling for him. I didn’t want to believe that any part of what happened could be true.
But those thoughts were foolish and being a foolish girl was what got me in this spot to begin with. I knew the moment I met Beck that he wasn’t someone I could trust. Hell, he had even told me so himself.
But I didn’t want to listen.
"Slut." I tried to ignore the slur that was thrown my way and pushed forward to my locker. These people didn’t mean shit to me and neither did their opinion.
That was what I was going to tell myself.
These people were temporary, and I would forget them all when my dad finally handed over the keys to my mother’s house.
And I refused to allow them to fuck with my head in the meantime.
I entered my combination into my lock and pulled my locker open. I wouldn’t have to deal with facing Beck until second period, but I would have to deal with Cami in first. I didn’t know what to expect when it came to her, but I knew that I wasn’t ready.
She had been nice to me, and I had fucked her boyfriend/non-boyfriend.
I didn’t feel bad, because Beck had fucking broke me. Every part of me that should have cared was now filled with blinding rage.
I couldn’t bring myself to care what Cami was going to think. I couldn’t care about how she had felt when she saw the video in front of her.
I didn’t have room for her or her feelings.
And if she was as close to Beck as she tried to make everyone believe, I couldn’t imagine that she didn’t know what he had been doing to me. She had to know that he was using me. That I was all a part of his game.
She had to know what he was going to do.
And the thought only made my rage intensify.
I could feel everyone watching me as they walked by. I was nothing more than a spectacle to them, their hottest topic of gossip, and I wanted to scream at them all. I wanted to erupt and roar and ruin every one of their perfect little lives, but none of that would do me any good.
The only person I should be worried about destroying was Beck Clermont. He had shattered me, and I wanted to do the same to him. I wanted to do worse. I wanted him to feel everything he had made me feel and rip it away without warning.
I grabbed my book from my locker and straightened my spine as I made my way to class. Students steered clear of my path, and I was thankful.
The class was eerily quiet as I walked in, but I pretended not to notice. I kept my head up as I walked past desks filled with gossiping assholes, and I tried to look as bored as I felt.
I didn’t think twice as I took the seat I had been sitting in since I started in this place. I didn’t give a crap if it was beside Cami. I wouldn’t cower.
She was already at her desk when I slid into mine, and I didn’t look up at her even though I could feel her eyes on me. If she had something to say, then she could say it. They all could.
But I wasn’t going to acknowledge them first.
"Are you seriously going to sit there?" Cami’s snide remark came before I could even grab my notebook out of my bag.
I looked over at her, and she looked as put together as she always had. She didn’t look like she was heartbroken over a boyfriend she cared about. She didn’t look like a girl who had her fucking heart ripped from her chest.
"I am." I pulled out my notebook and a pencil, and I could hear whispers around me.
"Move, skank." Cami was firm in her order, and I turned my notebook to the last page of my notes. I still had to do well in school if I wanted all the things my father held in his firm grip.
I wasn’t going to let them steal my future away from me.
Not when it was the only thing I had.
I got my supplies ready before I looked back over at Cami. She was so beautiful, and I knew that she knew it. She was a queen, and I was nothing to her, just like I was nothing to him.
And she had played her part well.
I was certain of it.
None of these people had ever been genuine.
"Go fuck yourself, Cami." There was a shocked gasp from behind me, but I didn’t care. I could feel my blood heating and my face turning red, and all I could see was that damn video flashing over and over in my head.
She looked as shocked as the rest of them, like she had expected me to leave my backbone at home, but they had picked the wrong girl. I wasn’t the girl they thought I was. I wasn’t the girl to roll over simply because they thought they had won.
I wouldn’t dare let any of these people treat me as if I was anything below them.
"What did you just say to me?" She looked around the room as she spoke, and I knew that she was checking to see who was watching. Cami didn’t do anything if it wasn’t for show.
"I’m not going to repeat myself." I faced forward and got comfortable in my chair.
"I should have known simply by your last name that you were trash."
I wasn’t sure why her words bothered me so much. She was more than impressed by my last name a few weeks ago. It had meant more to her than I ever did.
I stood from my chair and watched the flicker of fear in her eyes as I moved toward her desk. Cami thought she was better than everyone else, but she wasn’t. She was just like the rest of us.
Maybe even more fucked up.
I placed one hand on her desk and one on the back of her seat as I brought my face close to hers. "You have a lot of nerve calling me trash." Her eyes narrowed, but I wasn’t finished with her. I lowered my voice for only her to hear. "We may have both fucked Beck, but I’m not the one fucking a married man."
Her eyes widened in shock, and I knew that she hadn’t expected me to know that information. But that one move from her was enough to let me know it was true. She was uneasy that I had that information on her. Her eyes darted around the room, but there was no one here to save her.
I wouldn’t tell a soul about what she was doing, but I would use it if she didn’t leave me the hell alone. I wouldn’t be her punching bag while she was the one who deserved everyone’s hate.
"Who told you that?" Her voice was shaky, and I almost felt sorry for her.
"It looks like we both trusted the wrong boy." I pushed off her desk and returned to mine without another word.
There wasn’t another word from her either.
Not a peep.
But that didn’t stop the snickers and whispers that continued around me. Every
time I would look to the side, their gazes would jump away from mine.
It was irritating, and I was so thankful when the bell rang at the end of the first period. I pushed out of the classroom, and I avoided looking at anyone as I went into the bathroom.
I had only been here for one period so far, and I already felt overwhelmed. I was going to have to face Beck in my next class. He was going to be there with his perfect face and his perfect body and his cruel fucking heart.
I could face girls like Cami all day, but I didn’t know if I could face him.
As brave as I wanted to act, he broke me. He broke me, and I was going to have to sit there and pretend like I wasn’t affected.
It hadn’t mattered that he had called and text me after what happened. The first one was begging me to listen to him, to let him explain. The second had been a simple ‘I’m sorry’.
His sorry was full of shit, and both he and I knew it.
And I wouldn’t give him the opportunity to explain. As much as I hated him, I knew that he affected me.
I stared into the mirror and ran my fingers under the cold water. I could face him. I knew that I could.
I could slip on a mask just like he had and hide everything I was feeling. I just had to get through today, then tomorrow would be easier. If I could face him once, then I knew I could face him again.
I took a deep breath and turned off the water.
You can do this, Josie.
I wouldn’t fear him. If that was what he wanted, he was mistaken in his plan. I didn’t fear him. I hated him.
I hated him with every part of me.