Cassia sips on her wine nonchalantly, and I’m already tired of her bullshit. My mind keeps drifting back to Sophia, and all I want is to run to her and tell her why I’m doing all of this, but I can’t.
On Friday, the messages I received were from a burner phone, but Cassia admitted it was from her. It was a folder of images that I doubt Sophia would want to be public. Apparently, last summer, she had a nude photoshoot, and it was rather erotic. Not only that, but Cassia managed to put cameras in Sophia’s dorm, hence, she had all the fucking tapes of Sophia and me together.
My tapes have been leaked already; I don’t care.
But Sophia? She’ll be destroyed if anything of the sort comes out. And the worst part is that I’ll never be able to prove it was Cassia. She has everything backed up, and I don’t doubt she has multiple copies.
I’m guessing that somewhere along the line, Sophia told someone in her dorm that she was the one to leak my sex tape with Ellie, and Cassia has proof of it, too. The cunt’s been working the entirety of the first semester on this, trying to find evidence or anything incriminating of Sophia’s.
Cassia wants me.
And she can have me as long as she doesn’t dare to touch Sophia.
I don’t plan on going along with this charade, but before I can tell Sophia what’s happening, I need to figure out where all the hidden cameras are in her dorm and whether or not our phones are being traced. Because if I so much as breathe in Sophia’s direction, Cassia will leak everything.
“Smile, sweetheart,” Cassia urges, and I listen, though if a look could kill, the bitch would drop dead right about now.
“Hah, fuck you.”
She takes my hand in hers, and I suppress the urge to gag and vomit all over her dress. She looks fucking tacky in that sparkly dress that makes my eyes hurt. She leans in, kissing my cheek.
The bitch’s blackmailing me into dating her, and if this didn’t already sound like some teen bullshit drama, it sure as fuck does now.
“Don’t be like that,” her lips linger around my cheek, and fuck, it feels so wrong. Everyone can see us, and even my own mother is shooting me dirty looks. She was less than thrilled about my little thing with Sophia, but this is downright disgust on her face that she’s not even trying to conceal. “You’ll grow to like me, I promise.”
“Sure, I will.”
She pulls back, and I can’t help but think that this isn’t her end goal. A person cannot possibly be this fucking delusional, which tells me that she’s only using me as a means to an end. She has no actualdesire to be with me; she just sees me as a fucking tool.
Soon enough, the same tool will hurt her because she can’t wield it.
My eyes flick to the bar, and my heart sinks to my feet. Sophia’s with Damien of all people, and I just have this unwavering need to knock his fucking teeth out. He’s getting too close to her for my liking, and the spike of jealousy burst through me.
“They’re getting cozy,” Cassia says, a light smirk on her face. God, I want to kill the bitch. “Is that bothering you?”
“You’re the one bothering me right now,” I hiss.
She rolls her eyes, and it’s clear she’s finding all of this amusing. “Ah, your sister’s coming. Guess I should let you two have a little privacy, huh?”
Now, between being stuck with Cassia and being forced to speak with Astrid, I’m not sure which one I hate more. But before I can even question it, Cassia walks off, and Astrid comes to stand in front of me.
“What do you want?”
“Soren,” her voice is soft, and I see just how much she regrets what went down. But just because she’s regretting it, doesn’t mean it can undo the mess. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“No, I just don’t want to speak to you.”
“Please,” she steps closer. “I just want to apologize properly.”
“What for?” I ask, taking a small sip of the whiskey. “For leaking my sex tape, or for sharing the image from the elevator?”
“I told you, I had nothing to do with the first one,” she says, her voice bordering on pleading. “But I am sorry for what I did. I didn’t think it through; I just wanted to hurt you and Sophia, and I acted selfishly and recklessly. I’m sorry.”
“Right,” I drawl out, tired of this already. “Did you also marrySawyer because of that?”
“What?”
“You’re clearly prone to reckless behavior, so I’m asking you, did you marry him on a whim just to hurt and spite our family even more? Or did you do it because somehow, you thought that by getting the Sloane surname, you’d become someone similar to Sophia?”
