Page 86 of Gilded Fake

“I just wanted to get him back,” she cries. “After you stole him. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours!”

“Except I would never have told anyone about us,” I say. “I didn’t even tell him, even though it made him hate me, because I didn’t want any chance of the Dolces finding out. You jumped at the first opportunity to spread your nasty little rumors, and for what? A post you deleted. You don’t even get to see those likes. How many followers did you get for that post?”

“It’s not like that!”

“Isn’t it?” I ask. “Did you consider what would happen if he died, how much fame you’d wring out of that tragedy? Then you would have gotten to play the victim again, the grieving widow, like you played grieving best friend when Crystal disappeared. Imagine how many comments you would have gotten on your blog post announcing his death. You could have leveraged that into a spot at the popular table, maybe even bagged one of the elite guys for some sympathy play. And then you’d have sunk your claws into him just like you did Colt, once you got rid of the stain of Colt’s reputation on yours, of course. Was that the backup plan, in case he died?”

“You’re the psycho,” Dixie says. “I would never think of something so devious. I just made a mistake! If I was so scheming, would I make a miscalculation like that?”

Suddenly, I know how to destroy her, how to turn her sycophants against her, to give her a taste of her own medicine. She curried favor with the Dolces from day one, and ever since, she’s been the luckiest girl in school, untouched by their cruelty, immune to the consequences the rest of us face. She calls herself the people’s queen, but she’s as removed from her subjects as Marie Antoinette, watching the destruction caused by the Dolces from the safety of her ivory tower. She should know how easily alliances are forgotten, but it’s never happened to her, so she’s never had to face that kind of betrayal.

I shrug. “Okay. Maybe you’re not a mastermind at all. You never thought through any of the gossip tidbits you posted. They were just a little bit of dumb fun. You didn’t mean for him to get hurt. And you didn’t hide anything, you just got sloppy and forgot to tell him about the post when he woke up.”

Her eyes narrow, her nostrils flaring as she glares at me. “I’m not sloppy.”

I shrug. “Sure seems like it. I mean, it’s one thing to make a miscalculation, but for it to be an accident… It didn’t take a genius to know Royal would be mad.”

“I didn’t know he’d go that far,” she insists, stamping her foot.

“Okay,” I say. “If you think about it, I guess that makes sense, since your blog success is basically a fluke too. Anyone could regurgitate the drama every day. You just thought of it first. Really, you’re more lucky than brilliant.”

“It’s not luck,” she fumes. “I work my ass off for it.”

“Seems like luck,” I say. “Everyone posts on social media. Yours just happened to go viral. Everything always works out for you, but if you didn’t plan it, then you can’t really take credit for it.”

“I did plan it,” she explodes. “I plan everything! Nothing works out for me! I work myself to the bone for every drop of success, every like, every comment. I have to plan fifteen steps ahead because you plan ten! You have no idea how hard it is. I can’t get famous for my looks. I have to be smarter, and work harder, than anyone at this school, to dig up every morsel of gossip to feed the bloodthirsty mob, so they won’t come for me!” She stops, breathing hard, her face flushed.

“And there it is,” I say, throwing my arm wide, toward the crowd. “You plan everything. You really are the mastermind, Dixie. And now everyone knows it. They know what a scheming bitch you are, and how you played them all while thinking how clever you were to stay ahead of the game. They know what you really think of them.”

“I will end you,” she grits out. “You won’t get away with this.”

“All I want is to get away from you,” I say, turning away.

“He’ll never love you as much as he loves me,” she calls after me. “You’ll always share him with his addiction.”

When I shove through the crowd and don’t see him, I hurry outside, heading for the bleachers, my pulse fluttering madly, a butterfly trapped against a window, unable to break through and get to what it needs. I need Colt, need to know he’s okay, to tell him I’m sorry and beg for forgiveness on my knees.

I remember what I said about fighting for a man, but I was wrong. Colt was always worth fighting for. It’s not when you find someone worth fighting for that you throw away all you believe in and break all your own rules. It’s when you lose someone worth fighting for.

nineteen

Rumor Has It… The former usurper is making moves to take back the throne she stole for so long. Will her devious methods push a king down a path so dark he can’t see clearly who she really is—the villain of his story?

Colt Darling

I lay in the bed of my truck staring up at the hazy, colorless sky. Dense summer heat blankets the evening, and the drowsy drone of insects lulls me in and out of a doze as much as the pills do. I can’t remember how many I swallowed—too fucking many. I needed them to tamp down the fury this morning. I don’t know where the day went until I see the dozen beer bottles haphazardly strewn around me, along with a whiskey bottle standing upright, the lone survivor of my binge. The cap is missing, but a few inches of amber liquid remain in the bottom of the bottle.

I sit up and reach for my smokes, only to find the empty pack on the tailgate, butts littering the gravel around my truck, which is parked at the edge of the quarry. I sigh and hop down, gathering them and dropping them back into the pack before I toss it into the bed. My head is pounding already, so I grab the whiskey bottle and take drink. A hiccup erupts from me, my body rebelling against my mind’s urge to self-destruct.

I take another swallow anyway, relishing the harsh burn.

Everyone knows.

That’s what she said. They all knew, and no one said anything.

I didn’t expect someone to run up and tell me everything the moment I became king again, but this… All along, I was the joke, and I didn’t even know it.

It’s one thing for everyone to keep their distance and not say anything. They didn’t owe me shit, and most of them didn’t know what to think of me regaining the throne after years of being stomped back into the gutter every time I tried to crawl out. They were probably too scared of Dixie to tell me the truth.

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