I stared at him in quiet fury. This blokeloathedme, and I’d thought he was my friend. It was difficult to wrap my head around. How quickly he’d made me despise him in return, though. “We’re done. If that isn’t clear. We are done. You can leave now. And you can kiss any connections to my family for your mother goodbye. My grandmother played you too becauseshe’d never let a snake like you near the family. Even if the two of you apparently have snakelike qualities in common.”
His face screwed up in rage until Harry addressed him. “Just to be clear, we’re done too. I want you out of my flat by the time we get home.”
“It’s my flat too,” Zac said stupidly.
“Oh, is it? I thought my father paid for it. You were my friend, so I let you live there. You are no longer my friend. Therefore, you no longer live there.”
Something like regret tightened Zac’s expression, but he pushed past us and gritted out. “I’ll get my stuff.”
“Oh, and, Zac,” Harry called after him.
Our ex-friend reluctantly stopped and turned around.
Harry’s face was harder than I’d ever seen it. “Your phone. Now.”
“Why would I give you my phone?”
“So I can delete that photograph and make sure you don’t have it saved anywhere else. You see, if that photograph ever sees the light of day, I’ll not only make sure you’re blacklisted, I’ll make it my mission to haunt your life, ruining every good opportunity that comes your way. Are we clear?”
Zac swallowed nervously. “Wewere friends.”
“You don’t do what you did to a friend.”
“I didn’t do it to you.”
“You did it to Bas, so you did it to me too.”
Gratitude cut through the chaos of emotion flying around inside me as Zac, face red with indignation, pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped on the screen.
Harry took it from him and spent a few minutes checking it, while we all stood in tense silence.
“Photo is deleted. He had it saved to the cloud, but I’ve deleted that too.” He handed it back to Zac with a look of disgust. “Remember my warning.”
Zac snatched it back and stormed off toward the guest rooms without looking any of us in the eyes.
I clamped a hand on Harry’s shoulder as Zac disappeared out of sight. “Thanks, mate.”
“Always.”
“I’m sorry.”
Harry cut me a look. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. I feel like I need a long hot shower. How did we not know what a creep he was? He really hates you. How did he hide that? And why? I mean, other than Lily, why? You’ve never done anything but be his friend.”
“We missed it.” I shrugged unhappily. “It happens. Let’s not drive ourselves crazy trying to untangle the inner workings of his twisted mind.”
“Lily’s really okay?” Maddie asked, expression troubled.
Remembering her soft crying on the phone, I had the sudden urge to pull a plane out of the sky so I could get on it and fly back to her. “She is. Once I explained everything. I’m not looking forward to explaining the rest of it to her. Zac’s …crushor my bloody grandmother’s behavior.”
Maddie winced. “Aye, sorry about that.”
I’d deal with my grandmother later.
Sierra gestured to the house. “We should clean up and go back to Edinburgh.”
“I’m sorry for all the drama and for messing up your holiday.”
Her eyes cut flirtatiously to Harry. “Hey, I still had a good time. I’m going to shower first and then I’ll help out.”
