Page 35 of Wicked Elites

“How about it?” he whispered back. “Are you going to earn me ten grand, or will it be war?”

I rolled my eyes. “Have you been reading Dangerous Liaisons?”

“Oui, mais en français.”

Despite myself, a smile curled my lips. As much as I loved movies, I always appreciated it when someone read the original book, especially in its original language. “Well, you know my answer, then. It’s the same one the Marquise de Merteuil gave the Vicomte de Valmont.”

“War?” he asked.

“Oui,” I replied. “C’est la guerre.”

“War it is.” Leopold slunk back to his seat.

Dread rumbled through the lining of my stomach, up my esophagus and into the back of my throat. I swallowed back the creeping bile. That had been so final.

In Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the main characters either died or became disfigured by smallpox. How would this little war end for us?

* * *

After classes, I returned to my room to put down my bag. A sheet of paper lay on my desk adorned with the words cut out from newspaper print, SEBASTIAN BELONGS TO ME.

I stared at the letter. Who the hell read physical papers these days, and who had time to collect enough headlines to form this note?

My mind jumped to Bianca. Geraldine clearly had her eye on Leopold otherwise she wouldn’t have given him the blowjob, and Bianca was the only other girl who sat with the kings, even though none of them seemed to be dating her.

“She’s welcome to him,” I muttered.

“What’s this?” Ashley crossed the room.

I handed her the piece of paper. “Some creepy stalker is being melodramatic.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Why would anyone think Sebastian wants you?”

My nostrils flared. “Does everything with you have to be a put-down?”

She reared back. “It’s an honest question. Sebastian Garraway is the most popular boy in the school and the sole heir to the Garraway Tea Company. It’s existed since the seventeenth century, and he’s about as rich as a duke. Why would someone like that be interested in you when he could have Geraldine or Bianca?”

The truth in her words hit me in the gut, and I stepped back. Kissing him had been a moment of weakness. Two, if I counted last night, and it wouldn’t happen again. “He isn’t interested in me.”

“You see?” Ashley plucked the note from my fingers and tore it to shreds.

“I needed that!”

“To give yourself false hope?” She pushed up her chest in a parody of my 34E breasts and stuck out her ass. “Oh, I’m so hot, everyone thinks I’m with Sebastian Garraway. This note is proof!”

“No,” I growled. “It’s evidence of being harassed.”

“It’s a prank.” She strode to the door. “Not everything is about you.”

My nostrils flared, and I said through clenched teeth, “You can be really vicious. Do you know that?”

“The difference between you and me is that I’m consciously hurting you. You hurt me by just existing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She stepped into the hallway and slammed the door. My shoulders slumped. Mom and Dad would be horrified at the rift between us. I didn’t know how to fix things without losing myself, and Ashley didn’t even seem to want to try.

I gathered up the pieces of paper from the floor and threw them in the trash. There was no point in keeping it now that Ashley had destroyed the evidence.