Page 40 of Reign
“How else would you read it?”
“That she knows aboutus.” Suddenly Daphne couldn’t make eye contact with him. “That I cheated on my boyfriend with you; that you betrayed your best friend.”
“What makes you think it’s a she?”
“It’s Gabriella.”
Ethan retreated a few steps and sank onto a swing, closing his hands around the cold metal chains. Daphne hesitated before taking the swing next to him. She yanked out her bun and tossed her hair angrily over one shoulder, then kicked against the ground so that her swing lurched back.
“Gabriella Madison?” Ethan asked slowly. “That doesn’t make sense. I hardly know her.”
“She’s going afterme.You’re just caught in the cross fire.” Daphne leaned forward, and Ethan started swinging just a little bit higher than she was. Typical.
“If it’s really Gabriella, then we have to work together onthis. We don’t stand a chance against the Madisons on our own,” he pointed out.
“Ethan, you and I areincapableof working together! We don’t even trust each other!”
He was silent for so long that she felt compelled to look over and meet his gaze. When she did, his expression was uncharacteristically serious.
“I trust you, Daphne.”
She started to reply, something flippant or caustic likeYou should know better,but the words died on her lips. Ethan was looking at her in a way that rattled something deep within her.
“I trust you,” he said again, “and you know that you can trust me. The one thing you and I have never done is lie to each other.”
Daphne realized, a bit stunned, that he was right. She’d spent her entire life lying, by innuendo and omission and, when necessary, outright falsehood. Yet she and Ethan had never dealt in anything but the truth.
Her swinging slowed.
Things between them were so complicated. Over the years they’d been antagonists, lovers, allies, keepers of each other’s darkest secrets, and, in their own strange way, friends. Or at least, two of a kind. They were both outsiders who wanted to belong.
Maybe they could team up one last time, just to free themselves of this threat.
“If we do this, I’ll need some kind of leverage over you. Otherwise how would I know you aren’t working with Gabriella to double-cross me?” she added, at Ethan’s confused look.
“Double-cross you? Why would I do that?”
“It’s whatNinadid!”
She was gratified by the surprise on Ethan’s face. “What do you mean?”
Suddenly, the whole awful story came spilling out of her: how she and Nina had teamed up to take down Gabriella, how Nina had betrayed her. It was a relief to finally share this with someone after months of keeping it bottled up inside.
“You really think Nina was playing you?” Ethan asked, when Daphne had finished talking.
“I do.”
She’d seen Nina and Jefferson together in the gardens that night—the same night that Nina’s scholarship had been reinstated, while Daphne’s life had nearly fallen apart.
“It just doesn’t sound like Nina,” Ethan murmured.
Daphne twisted the metal chain of the swing as realization struck. “But it makes sense! How else would Gabriella have known about you and me? Nina must have told her!”
Ethan’s eyes widened. “You toldNinawe hooked up?”
“No, of course not! She figured it out. She’s observant and smart, I’ll give her that,” Daphne said grudgingly.
She thought back to that confrontation, in the aftermath of Beatrice and Teddy’s almost-wedding. Nina had looked at her with dawning comprehension and said,You’re in love with Ethan, aren’t you? You’ve always loved him.And Daphne hadn’t denied it.
