Page 39 of Cruel Riches

7

Alexis

Without another word,Nate stepped out of the gazebo and started walking away.

“Hey! Wait!” I snapped out of my shocked reverie and frantically raced to catch up with him. “What are you going to do?”

He stopped and turned to look at me. “Nothing right now.”

I gulped. “So you are going to tell people who I am at some point?”

“Don’t fuck up and I’ll consider keeping it to myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s pretty fucking simple, Alexis. It means don’t fuck anything up,” he said. A smirk suddenly twisted his lips. “If you can manage that, we can be friends. No better way to start a friendship than with a secret, right?”

I took a step back, hands balling into fists. “We will never be friends,” I hissed.

Nate lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “Suit yourself. Just remember what I said.”

With that, he turned and left.

On shaky legs, I headed out of the park and over to the road. I didn’t bother getting a security escort back to my dorm, even though it was a fifteen-minute walk across the campus in the dark. After all, what was the worst that could happen now?

The worst had already happened.

My dark secret had been exposed to the cruelest person I knew, and he’d already used it to force me to my knees. I shuddered to think what he might do to me in the future, but I couldn’t tell anyone about it and try to save myself from him without telling the truth about my identity.

That couldn’t happen. The people of Avalon Island would probably chase me away with pitchforks if they ever found out who I was, even though it was my home just as much as it was theirs.

So fucking unfair.

When I got back to the residence hall, I knocked on Claire’s door, just to see if she was home. As usual, there was no answer.

With a heavy sigh, I went into my dorm and opened my laptop to send quick Facebook messages to Laurel and Ruby to let them know that my phone had broken and I’d returned to my dorm to try to fix it. That way they wouldn’t worry when they noticed me missing from the party.

After that was done, I took my phone out of my purse and carefully pulled it apart. Then I placed the battery and other pieces on tissues on the accent table, next to the Everlasting roses.

I was pretty sure I was wasting my time. There was only a very slim chance that my phone could’ve survived the recent swim in hot spiced wine, even though Harry managed to get it out within two minutes.

Letting out another sigh, I stripped off my dress and went into the bathroom. I was disgusted by what I saw in the mirror. My eyes were red and puffy, and long streaks of mascara covered my cheeks and chin. Some had even dripped down to my neck and chest, mixed in with silvery strands of dried saliva.

I looked like hell.

Swallowing a lump in my throat, I turned the shower onto full blast and scrubbed myself under the scalding water for what felt like an hour.

Even though my skin was pink and almost rubbed raw by the time I was done, I still felt filthy. With his cruel mouth and sinful hands, Nate had suffused my hair and skin with the kind of dirtiness that didn’t wash out.

His words echoed in my mind as I pulled on my pajamas and climbed into bed with my giant box of chocolates and laptop. No better way to start a friendship than with a secret, right?

My blood boiled at the thought of him suggesting that we could ever be friends. I knew that was the whole point, though. He wanted to make me angry so he could rub my secret in my face. After all, what the hell was I going to do with my anger toward him? Report him to someone? Of course not.

Like he said earlier… he owned me now.

After stuffing three rich truffles into my mouth in an attempt to eat my feelings, I lay back against my plump pillows and focused on Netflix. My vision started to blur and spin after a while, and I lay a hand across my forehead and groaned, wishing I hadn’t had so much mulled wine earlier in the evening. That stuff was a killer. It tasted sweet and harmless, but that made it dangerous, because it was easy to drink too much of it.

At some point I drifted off to sleep. As usual, my dreams were filled with strange, terrifying images. In the latest nightmare, I was visiting a house deep in the dark woods on the northwest side of the island. There was a long hallway lined with doors, and all of them were closed except for one at the end. It was open just a crack, and there was a dark shadow there, watching me.

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