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“What…” His voice emerged on a thready whisper and he cleared his throat before starting again. “What the fuck is this, Iris?”
“What?”
“I hate him,” he intoned, his eyes moving as he read from the screen. “I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say that about anyone before, but this man is cruel, he’s odious, he’s an utter bastard. People idolize him—the great Trystan Abbott—with his beauty and charisma and charm. But they haven’t seen this side of him. This twisted, brutal side of?—”
“No! Oh my God, Trystan. Stop!” It was Iris’s turn to pale as she recognized what he was reading.
He’d found her journal. Of course he had. It was right there on her desktop. Iris made no effort to hide it. It was her laptop after all. And while the thoughts were private, it wasn’t a big secret that she kept a journal. Except that… Trystan didn’t know about it. She hadn’t ever told him.
“Those are my private thoughts. It’s my journal, Trystan. And it’s not a big deal. I’ve kept one since I was a teenager. My therapist recommended it as a way to keep track of my triggers. I wrote that the night we met.” She attempted a laugh, which fell miserably flat. “I’m sure you had similar feelings toward me in those early days.”
“Only my feelings weren’t published in a tell-all exposé in Looker magazine an hour ago.”
She stared at him in dazed confusion, not quite comprehending those tight, furious words.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, a surge of horror clawing up from her stomach into her throat, bringing with it the taste of bitter bile.
He sighed, the sound taut with impatience, and swiped at the trackpad again before tossing the laptop onto the seat beside her, the gesture fill with contempt.
Iris stared in dismay and disbelief as she saw images of herself and Trystan splashed across the screen. There were other images, pictures she’d taken while at the house. Candid shots of Trystan playing with Luna, a selfie of her and Trystan cuddled on the sofa together, a picture Trystan had taken of her after wrestling her phone from her grasp. Her gaze snagged on that photo. Her hair was a windswept mess, but she looked so happy as she stared back at him. Her cheeks were flushed and the love, joy and warmth in her eyes and her wide smile were unmistakable.
Her bewildered eyes swept across the private images that had somehow found their way onto a very public website and only then did the accompanying words start to sink in.
They were her words. Sometimes taken directly from her journal, other times altered slightly to fit the prose, but they were her private thoughts on display for the world to see.
Worse… they?—
“Oh God…” she whimpered faintly and her hand went to her mouth as she comprehended everything else the article exposed. About Trystan. And Trish Nesbitt. Things he had told her in confidence, which she’d then faithfully, foolishly, stupidly, transcribed into her journal for no good reason other than habit.
“No, no, no,” she whimpered. “I don’t understand how?—”
Her eyes leaped up to Trystan’s face. He was staring out of the window, his emotions reined in tight, his eyes staring off into the distance.
“Trystan, I didn’t do this.” How could this be? She didn’t understand how this could possibly have happened. It felt like a waking nightmare… maybe it was. Maybe she was still asleep on the plane. Surely this could not be real?
He turned his head slowly and the expression in his eyes destroyed her. Such bleak desolation, battling with fury, betrayal, and something that looked like hatred.
“Yeah? If your plan was to lie to me about your role in this, then you probably shouldn’t have put your name in the fucking byline.”
Her eyes drifted back to the article, tracking to the very top.
The lurid title screamed at her How Trystan Abbott Imprisoned Me, followed by Story by Iris Hughes and Evan Brooks.
Iris’s stomach dropped when she saw the second name. Evan? Why would she do something so malicious? Was she really so keen on making her mark that she’d carelessly toss away their friendship like this? Then again, Iris’s biological father would probably happily have sold one of his daughter’s kidneys for a story like this, so why did this even surprise her? When Evan had shown every indication of being of the exact same ilk as Stanford Carter.
But how could she have accessed Iris’s private files? The pictures?
As she stared at Trystan’s averted profile, she realized that none of that mattered now.
“I don’t know how this happened, Trystan. I swear to God, I would never do something like this. You know that. You know me.”
“Do I?” Those two words, delivered in a devastatingly cutting monotone silenced her and she swallowed down the pained protest swelling in her throat. “Fuck me, I should have known better. This is my own fault. I can’t even blame you that much. I served myself up on a motherfucking platter and made it painfully easy for you to do this. Maybe part of me knew you would, maybe that’s why I so inexplicably laid my soul bare to you. Of all people. Maybe I’m relieved that my role in Trish’s death is finally out there. No more secrets, right?”
He rubbed his hands over his face, looking tired, defeated, and resigned. He didn’t even look particularly angry, and that—more than anything else—was what terrified Iris the most. He’d given up. On her. On them.
“I was a fool,” he laughed softly, the sound self-deprecating, the words almost absent as if he was speaking more to himself than to her. “You’re a shark… and when you bleed in front of a predator, you get eaten. But I allowed myself to be lulled into a false sense of security, while stupidly ignoring the fact that blood will tell and a predator’s instincts will always win out in the end.”
“No, Trystan. I don’t know how this happ?—”
