Page 111 of Worth Every Game

“Jesus, no.” I’ve gone over this a million times in my head. I stared at those photos so many fucking times. Could I have accidentally sent them somewhere? Pressed some button, and shared them? No, I don’t think so. But how else could it have happened? Could someone have hacked my phone? But why would they bother? I’m not exactly up there on the UK’s most-wanted list. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that to her. It’s killing me that she thinks I could have done that.”

Kate inhales through her nose, staring out the windscreen, her nostrils flaring. After a few moments of silence, she says, “Have you heard from Mum?”

“No. I bet she’s loving this. Is she?”

Kate picks at her nails. “I don’t know. I’m not answering her calls either. I’ve no interest in hearing her say ‘I told you so’ about my best friend. Not when Elly’s as upset as she is.” Kate stares at me. “She’s distraught. You fucked up. Big time.”

My heart aches at the thought of Elly upstairs and me down here, the two of us separated by an insurmountable fuck up and my bulldog of a sister. “Is it just the photos?”

“Just the photos?” Kate retorts, clearly horrified that I’d diminish the severity of this scenario with such a question.

“I mean, is it the messaging that’s going alongside the photos, more than the photos themselves? All those videos talking shit about her. It’s as though whoever made them knows her, or has some personal vendetta. Is there something I don’t know?”

Kate shrugs. “I have no idea. Why?”

“I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

Kate fixes me with a hard stare. “You’re dealing with the fact that you lied about a bunch of explicit photos. You’re dealingwith the fact that they’re out there in the world and it’s your fault.”

My fault.Hearing those words is never not going to hurt. “I’m doing everything I can to wipe those photos out of existence.” I cup the back of my head with both hands, a noise of pure frustration ravaging the back of my throat. “If I did it, if Icausedthis, it was an accident. I would never,ever, have done anything to deliberately hurt Elly.Ever.”

“Doesn’t matter. No woman lets a guy take pictures like that unless…”

“Unless what?”

Kate shakes her head. “She must have decided to trust you. God knows why. And you betrayed that trust.”

“Fuck, I know. Iknow.” I can’t stand the idea that I did this; that the woman I love isdistraughtbecause of something I did. “What if someone else leaked the photos? What if it wasn’t me? Remember, I lost my phone at Nico’s, the night of Dad’s fundraiser? Maybe—”

“Jack.” She cuts me off, and I know I’m clutching at straws, looking for excuses that don’t exist. “Your phone was exactly where you said you left it. Right there. No one had even touched it.”

I drop my head into my hands.Shit. “I don’t see how I could have done it. There’s no record of it on my phone. I didn’t send them anywhere. I don’t—” I break off, groaning into my cupped hands, and Kate squeezes my shoulder.

“If it wasn’t you, who was it?” she asks, her voice soft.

My hands fall to my thighs. “I don’t know. Lydia? She was there, outside the bathroom. That was the last place I remember having my phone.”

Kate splutters. “Okay, thatismad.” All the softness in her voice falls away, replaced by dismissal. “I know Lydia was a bit disturbed by finding you and Elly together, but whatyou’re suggesting is bordering on Machiavellian. Besides, I’m pretty sure Lydia was off hooking up with someone else. Seb Hawkston, maybe. I bet she wasn’t even thinking about you. Either way, you’re the one who had such incriminating photos on your phone, and who kept them there even after Elly asked you to delete them. You have to accept culpability here. You fucked up. That’s all. You have to take responsibility for that and all its consequences.”

The silence prickles.

“Am I going to lose Elly over this?”

Kate is quiet for far too long. “Maybe.”

I bang furiously on Seb Hawkston’s office door. I am determined to find out what happened to those photos if it’s the last thing I do. If someone is out there trying to harm Elly, I need to fucking know about it. Ever since I mentioned it to Kate, I haven’t been able to give up on the idea that Lydia had a hand in it, but for the life of me, I can’t work out how. The determination to find out who’s responsible has driven me here, to Seb’s office, a fog of rage clinging to me.

“Quit the fucking noise and come in,” he yells.

I enter and close the door behind me. Seb’s sitting behind his desk, looking all immaculate in a perfect suit and pale blue tie. Even his light brown hair is perfectly coiffed. I must look deranged in comparison.

Seb raises a brow and unsubtly gives me the once over. “What can I do for—”

“Did you fuck Lydia?”

Seb gives me a bemused smirk and steeples his hands, leaning back in his chair. “A gentleman never tells.”

His calm demeanor irritates the fuck out of me. “The night of Dad’s fundraiser. Did you, or did you not, fuck Lydia Archer?”

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