Page 52 of Heartless Prince

How had I never known Ben Wellington was distantly related to the Kings? Why didn’t Elias say anything to me for so long? It wasn’t like he didn’t have the opportunity to do so before now.

He partially answered my second question a moment later, without me even having to ask.

“I’ve waited so long to tell you who I am, just so I could finally do this and draw it out. Savor it,” he said in a low voice, stepping around to my front again. He lashed at one of my breasts, and I yelped. “I’ve dreamed about you tied up and sobbing, exactly like this, and I’ve fantasized about seeing the agony in your eyes as I force you to think about all the fucking pain you inflicted that night. It used to be enough. But not anymore.”

“That night… it was an accident,” I whispered, lowering my eyes.

“Bullshit.” He pushed my chin up with his free hand, forcing me to look at him. “I’ve seen the evidence myself. You’re guilty, and you know it,” he snarled.

He slashed the whip over my other breast. I whimpered. I wanted to close my eyes and disappear into my mind in an attempt to ignore the physical pain he was causing me, but right now, my mind was a far worse place to be than this torture chamber. Thinking only made things worse, and my lips trembled as all the awful memories rushed back in, pouring through me in torrents of shame.

A year and a half ago—March 17th, 2017—I’d been invited to a party by a school friend of mine, Katie Gagne. She came from a lower middle class family like me, but her mother worked for several wealthy people, so she’d managed to make friends with some of their kids who were around the same age as us. Katie had always been cool like that, easily able to transcend social boundaries like they didn’t exist. The rich kids all liked her, so they’d often invite her to their social events and let her bring friends if she wanted.

This particular party was somewhere near East Haven at an enormous mansion on an estate that ran along the coast. While Katie and I were there, I met a guy—an older college student named Ben Wellington. He was cute, smart and funny, and he seemed to think the same about me. He told me he wanted to go for a walk with me and get to know me better.

I went outside with him. I was young and stupid, barely seventeen. I actually thought he wanted to talk to me and nothing else, like he promised, and I thought all my teenage fantasies would be fulfilled. I thought I’d get my first kiss, right there under the stars, and he’d ask me to be his girlfriend.

So stupid. So naïve.

Ben wasn’t what he seemed at all. He put something in my drink, something that started to hit me as he led me along a dark path that ran through the back of the estate, high above the ocean. I didn’t notice until it was far too late.

The coastline on our right was jagged, fingers of dark rock sticking out with no discernible pattern above inlets of silvery water. Thick trees and bushes lined the other side of the path.

“It’s great out here, isn’t it?” Ben said as we stumbled farther along the wide path. I was beginning to feel unsteady and lightheaded, but I wanted to seem cool. I wanted to be perfect girlfriend material. So I agreed. I said it was amazing where we were, with all the fresh air and pretty clifftop views.

A second later, I spied a private beach below one part of the cliff, and I stopped and told him I wanted to go down to it. I wanted to feel the sand between my toes, wanted to dip my feet in the moonlit ocean.

Ben didn’t let me. He pushed me back against a thick bush on the other side of the stony path and muttered in my ear. “You know what else could be great out here?”

He grabbed at one of my breasts, and I frowned. “What are you doing?”

“C’mon,” he said, chuckling and nipping at my neck. “You know what this is.”

“I thought you just wanted to talk,” I said in a small voice. I could feel my innocent fantasy slipping away, shattering into tiny pieces on the horizon. He hadn’t even tried to kiss me. He was just going straight for my body.

He laughed again, a sharp, cruel bark. “Bullshit. I know you want my cock, and lucky for you, I don’t mind slumming it.” As he spoke, he managed to push me down to the ground and rip my skirt.

I struggled under his weight as he sucked at my neck and tried to get one hand down my panties. Most of my strength had been sapped by whatever he slipped in my drink, but I managed to jam one knee into his balls as he held me down. Then I slid out from under him and ran away as he grunted with pain.

He chased me down the path. I tried to hide behind one of the bushes, hoping he would lose sight of me in the darkness, but before I could slip behind the foliage, he caught up and grabbed me. I screamed and whirled around, pushing him as hard as I could.

He lost his grip on me, stumbling back over the path and tripping on several stones. He tried to regain his footing, but he didn’t realize how far back he was stepping, and only seconds later, he was teetering on the cliff’s edge.

Arms flailing, he begged me to help, begged me to pull him forward before it was too late. I was in complete and utter shock over what was happening, and my reflexes were slowed by the drugs he put in my drink. So I didn’t reach for him. I stood there blankly instead. Within the next ten seconds, he was gone, plunging into the darkness.

Only seconds later, I passed out right there on the stony path.

Someone had been walking on the beach below that night, and they saw Ben plummet over the cliff’s edge. They called 911. Within half an hour, I was found sprawled on the path above.

I was taken to hospital, and the police came to talk to me when I was awake. They told me Ben was dead and asked me for my side of the story. Apparently his wealthy, influential parents were insisting charges be laid against me. They were saying I pushed their son on purpose, and it must’ve been because he rejected me. After all, he was so far above me… why would he ever want me? I was nothing but a scorned little girl, angry and hell-bent on revenge.

That was the narrative they tried to spin, but I was lucky. The police were on my side, because my skirt had clearly been ripped by someone and there were drugs in my bloodstream—something called GHB which could be taken as a party drug but also used as a date-rape drug. My story added up with the evidence they were given, even though it was blurry with several gaps in it from when the GHB started to hit me hard.

The case went to trial anyway, even though it seemed clear I was innocent. Ben’s parents were devastated over his death, understandably, and they wanted someone to pay for it.

I spent several months worrying myself to death, but a judge ended up dismissing the case entirely once she reviewed the evidence. Apparently, there were wildlife cameras along the path Ben and I had been walking along, and while the footage was grainy and didn’t show the fall, it showed Ben on top of me on the ground farther up the trail, which matched my story of him attempting to assault me several minutes before he fell.

The linchpin in the case was a witness who gave testimony in my favor. We were never made aware of their name (the court was evidently concerned that Ben’s parents might try to pay them off to lie or stay away, and so their identity was suppressed) but we knew it was the person who’d been down on the beach when Ben fell. He or she testified that they’d seen Ben fall of his own accord with me standing several feet away, and that there was no way I could’ve pushed him.

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