My stomach drops to the floor. “What do you mean pictures? Where did you find them?”
“On his laptop. He has tons of pictures of you from high school. And after. I don’t know where he got them. I think he might have taken some of them, like a creep.”
A tingling heat prickles over my skin. “They aren’t… He doesn’t have naked pics or anything, does he?”
“Oh, no.” Nick shakes his head sharply. “But he has so fucking many of them, Amy. The sheer volume was staggering.”
I jerk back. “Like how many?”
His eyes grow unfocused. “I scrolled through all of them. The idiot left them pulled up on his laptop, and his password is 11111. There had to be hundreds.”
My stomach hollows out. It’s time to ask Nick the burning question. “What do you think he’s planning to do with the pictures?”
“I have no idea. Maybe nothing. He might just…have a crush on you or something, but I still wouldn’t trust him. Not with the bet going on.”
“No,” I say immediately. “He’s played pranks on me before, and I’ve suspected from the very beginning that he’s planning something spectacular for the game. I think he wants to embarrass me again. Maybe at the closing ceremony when he makes his choice. The pictures… He might have been gathering them to find something he can use.”
“Well, he doesn’t have anything on you yet,” Nick says, his voice growing louder. “At least not from what I saw. Don’t give him anything, do you hear me? Don’t tell him anything he might use against you.”
A chill runs down my spine. Nick is generally a warm, easygoing guy. Or at least he was when we were kids. What could possibly have happened to warrant this kind of anger toward Tristan?
“What happened between you two to make you turn on him?” I ask.
His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m not turning on him. I’m just letting him face the consequences of his actions. He can’t… I’m not going to let him interfere in people’s lives anymore, like he’s God.”
Could this be about Serena? She told me Nick broke up with her because of Tristan’s and Harper’s intervention.
Maybe it was really just Tristan.
“Whatever he’s up to,” Nick says, “remember Tristan is always thinking about himself. This isn’t about you. My guess is he doesn’t like that you blow him off. I could see it on your first date. He was trying to charm you, and you gave him nothing. He didn’t like it. He’s not used to it.”
I let out a long sigh. “Honestly, Nick. I think he wants me to fall for him. I think his ultimate plan is to have me crazy about him and thinking he’s going to choose me, and then he’ll pull the rug from under my feet.”
He smiles. “He won’t be able to do that. You hate him.”
I want to agree that I hate him. The fact that I can’t shows just how much Tristan has gotten to me already. How could I have been such a fool? I’ve known this from the very beginning.
His stupid speech tonight. I fell for it even when I knew it was fake.
I take a deep breath through my nose and release it slowly out of my mouth. I need to come up with a plan. Some more spectacular way to get revenge. Cold indifference isn’t enough.
I need to humiliate him before he gets the chance to humiliate me. But how? He hardly ever gets embarrassed. He didn’t even care that I caught him masturbating. Didn’t worry about the consequences if I told anyone. This man is invulnerable in many ways. Nick is right that he’s a god, andeveryone else on this campus who worships him only reinforces it.
What if I did the opposite of worship him? What if I got as close to him as possible and showed him by my actions that I don’t think much of him?
I’ll sleep with him.
I’ll sleep with him and make him think he has me where he wants me.
Then I’ll drop the bomb.
That was mediocre sex, Tris, sorry. I don’t think I could stomach doing it again.
My stomach flips over. Tristan would lose his mind. It would shatter his ego. Shy, nerdy Amelia Harrington thinks Tristan Wolfe is bad in bed.
He’d probably always think of me. I’d be the one girl he could never have.
Sleeping with him will only be my grand finale. Up until then, I’ll show him a different girl than the one he thinks he has eating out of the palm of his hand. I’ll get a makeover, a temporary one of course. I’ll start acting sexy and flirting with guys. He’ll start to wonder if he ever really knew me.
