“Some of the hockey guys were there. The younger ones—Beau, Kyle, a few others.” Rachel’s voice was getting quieter with each word. “They were drunk and…saying stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
She looked like she might be sick. “About you. And Drew.”
Nausea joined the knot and I felt the need to brace myself. “What about me and Drew?”
“Harper, I don’t think I should?—”
“Tell me.” My voice came out sharper than I intended. “Please. What were they saying about me and Drew?”
Rachel took a shaky breath. “They were talking about some bet.”
My stomach dropped. “What bet?”
Her eyes filled with tears like she knew the words about to come out of her mouth would devastate me. “That he’d get you to sleep with him before the semester ended.”
It felt like I’d been sucker punched. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. My whole world had been tilted upside down in a split second.
No. It couldn’t be true.
“What?” I hated how weak my voice sounded.
“I know. I told them that didn’t even make sense because you guys hated each other before you got together, but they just kept laughing about it. They were drunk off their asses, but they have no reason to lie. They said it started as a joke in the locker room after you two were paired together on your psych project.”
“He wouldn’t?—”
Rachel’s voice shook. “They said he bet everything he had that hecould.” She took a breath, her hands trembling. “One of them said he already won. That even after he did, he was still with you because…because he needed help with the baby.”
It felt like the floor dropped out from under me.
“Rachel—”
“I didn’t want to believe it,” she said, her eyes wet. “But they sounded so sure, Harper. Apparently everyone on the team knew. They’ve been making all kinds of bets since then.”
My nose burned as tears started to fill my eyes, but I refused to blink and allow them to escape.
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel whispered. “I’ve been going crazy all week trying to decide whether I should tell you. Maybe they were lying, or exaggerating, or?—”
“Or maybe they were telling the truth.” My voice was hollow now.
Because a bet made a lot more sense than him actually falling for me.
Hadn’t I questioned how quick he turned things around? Now it all made sense.
A sick sort of sense that made me want to rage scream, curl up in a ball and sob, or destroy everything he held dear.
But I did none of those things.
Instead I was frozen.
I’d always believed I would be the type of woman to get even if I was scorned by a lover, but I couldn’t even breathe, let alone do anything else.
Everything—every tender moment, every vulnerable confession, every time he’d held me and made me feel safe—had been a lie. A performance designed to win a bet.
The baby. God, even Rory had been part of his manipulation. All those moments when I’d watched him with her, when I’d fallen for the devoted father act, when I’d started to imagine us as a real family.
I was going to be sick.
