Page 504 of Filthy Elites

I ignore Clay as he paces in front of me, obviously at a loss for what to do. Eventually, he sinks to the ground beside me and sighs dramatically. “We’re trying to fix things,” he says after an interminably long silence.

I try to ignore him, engaging with any of them is futile, but I find myself eager to understand them, at least in this. Lowering my cell to my lap, I exhale, lift my head and stare at him. “Why?”

“Because we don’t want you to hate us.”

I’m disappointed by his answer, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I wanted, no needed something more than just that lame, surface-level explanation.

“What does it matter if I hate you? We’re not friends, we never have been. I’d never spoken a single word to any of you before the day Sebastian took over my life. He didn’t ruin our relationship, we never had one. So be honest, just be fucking honest, what difference does it make if I hate you all?”

His eyes flash with hurt, but what does he have to be hurt about?

“Did Bastian tell you that he spotted you on your very first day at GAA?”

“Probably, he’s said a lot of bullshit, I try not to listen.”

Clay laughs a little brittlely. “Well, he did. He saw you in the group of new freshmen and he literally stumbled over his own feet just at the sight of you. For him it was instant. Love at first sight or whatever you want to call it. But he knew he couldn’t approach you. You were a freshman, freshmen are untouchable, even to The Elite.”

“This is a cute story and all, but what does this have to do with you?”

“We followed you.”

“Excuse me?”

“He wanted you to be safe, so we followed you. Me, Evan and Hunter, we followed you, learned everything we could about you, because he loved you.”

“I was barely fifteen and he was what? Sixteen, almost seventeen? Did none of you ever just put his want for me down as a childish crush? Normal people don’t obsess over a girl they’ve never spoken to, they don’t have them followed, stalked. They walk up to them and say, hey.”

Clay smiles a soft, aw-shucks smile. “Our families make alliances. We don’t marry for love, we marry to create bonds with other rich families, it’s old fashioned, but it’s how the rich stay rich and powerful. If Bastian had been older when he saw you, he wouldn’t have been able to pursue you, because his family would already have had someone lined up for him to marry. Claiming you when he did, before he even knew your name is the only way his parents would have even allowed him to take you out on a date.”

“So you, Evan and Hunter already have fiancées?” I ask skeptically.

“My parents are in talks with the La Mar family, there’s been talk about Hunter and the Hollins girl and Evan was expected to marry Bunny Lawrence, but your mom is putting up some resistance about an arranged marriage that Harry is indulging at the minute.”

I’m shocked by how calmly he’s talking about marrying a girl he doesn’t care for, like it’s a business arrangement, which I suppose it is. “This still doesn’t explain why you care if I hate you.”

He sighs, wearily. “Because for a whole year we got to know you, we watched you work too hard, watched you with Courtney, with your mom, we felt like we knew you, like you were one of us. You are one of us. Bastian is my brother, so that makes you my sister. I’ve never had a sibling before, but I want us to be friends, for you to rely on us.”

His words and his expression are earnest, almost hopeful, but instead of feeling sympathy, I’m outraged.

“You think of me like a sister?” I ask, needing to see if I’m understanding what he’s saying.

“Yes,” he nods eagerly.

“If I were your sister, would you want my life to be completely controlled by a man?”

His eyes cloud, but I don’t stop. “As your sister, would you want me to be in a powerless relationship where I was being held against my will, where in a fit of anger a man isolated me, removed all the meaningful relationships in my life until all I had left was him? Would you want your sister to be held captive by that man, forced to have sex with that man and used for his pleasure without thought for if that was something she wanted?”

He fidgets uncomfortably from his spot on the floor. “It’s”

I interrupt him. “Are you going to say it’s not like that? Because from where I’m sitting, it’s exactly like that. Sebastian strolled into my life when I was barely sixteen years old and declared I was his. When I was so unhappy and lonely that I ran to the other side of the country to get away from him, he threw a tantrum and destroyed my relationship with my mother. Years later, he orchestrated a situation that has left me yet again vulnerable and isolated, only this time, he took my virginity and is literally holding me captive in a very expensive cage.”

Clay swallows thickly. “Did he.” He pauses, swallows again and then speaks. “Did he rape you?”

I laugh and the sound is dark and hollow. “Does it matter?”

He nods. “Yes, it does.”

“And what if he did? What would you do if I told you that he raped me?”

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