Her Spite: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (The Forgotten Elites Book 2) Eden Beck (best book club books TXT) 📖

bit more about your dad then,” Warren says. “Because now, whatever chip it is that your father happens to be carrying around on his shoulder, it seems to be affecting Aubrey and her chances to get into a good school.”

For a moment, Sterling just stiffens within my grasp.

I feel his heartbeat quicken as he takes a moment to count his breaths, trying to keep them steady.

And then he nods.

Sterling ushers us further down the hall and out of earshot from anyone inside the gala. The four of us sit down in a corner at the very end of the hall beyond where the lights reach, and Sterling starts to talk in the shadows. Maybe it is the lack of light and the way that the shadow plays tricks on his face, but he looks both weary and jittery at the same time as he reluctantly begins to speak.

“The reason that I’ve been so jumpy and agitated lately is because of my father,” he says. “I mean, I think you all guessed that. You’ve always guessed that.”

His eyes look down at the ground instead of at any of us. “I’ve been trying to quit taking pills—”

“Wait, by pills … do you mean like drugs—like, drug drugs?” I interject. “Narcotics?”

I knew that Sterling has a drug problem, but I didn’t know much else about it. I naïvely thought it was something as simple as weed.

Even as I think it, I feel like such an idiot that I want to cry all over again. But I don’t. For Sterling.

I don’t want anything to stop him from telling us all the truth.

At last.

“Yeah,” Sterling says as he looks up at me sadly. “It’s not something I’m proud of. I was able to quit before, but with my dad around I just can’t help it. The moment I heard he was going to be here … I needed to have something to help me take the edge off. Even just knowing that he’s in the near vicinity makes all the past shit flood my mind until I can’t take it anymore. I need an escape from him.”

“What past shit?” Warren asks.

His voice sounds calm, but I can tell there’s something painful and serious beneath the surface.

Sterling’s voice hitches for just a second. When he continues, his eyes are fixed forward—staring into nothing.

Certainly not looking at any one of us.

“My father abused me for my entire life up until the day that I walked out the door to come here.”

He has to take a breath, a deep, shuddering breath that fills up the silence before he can continue again.

“He thought that sending me here was a punishment, but really anything that got me out of that house with him was a freedom from the atrocities that I suffered all those years. I think he thought that this place would somehow guilt me into wanting to stay in contact with him after I turned eighteen, but as soon as I got here, I cut off all communication with him. He threatened to cut off my funding and I told him to go ahead and do it. Then I could just leave here too and find my way in the world somewhere very, very far from him. So far, for whatever reason, he keeps footing the bill, and I keep my distance from him.”

“What kind of abuse?” Chase asks.

Warren shoots Chase a murderous glance, but I can see where Chase is going with it. We need to know what kind of man we’re dealing with. Really know.

“Let’s just say that I had my fair share of black eyes in grade school, and not from the playground bully,” Sterling answers. “When I got older, he got smarter. I still had bruises, but they were the kind you couldn’t see in a uniform.”

“How can they let a man like that be on the review board?” I ask. “Surely being an abuser is a disqualifying thing.”

“You would think so,” Warren mumbles.

“No one knows,” Sterling says. “My father is very good at being two people; the person he is with me, and the one he is to everyone else.”

He fidgets with the cuff of his sleeve and it’s painfully obvious how uncomfortable this conversation is for him. The following silence stretches out so long that eventually, there’s no point in any of us breaking it.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The four of us sit together, leaning up against the corner wall in a huddled heap of bodies for a long time. Sterling has his arms still wrapped around me and Warren and Chase are pressed up against either side of me as I lean back against Sterling’s chest. It’s been a bit of an emotional roller coaster, but it seems the ride isn’t quite over yet.

“I think that the three of us should come to an agreement,” Warren says, breaking the silence at long last. “This is a bullshit world we live in. After hearing what Sterling said, if Brown is where Aubrey wants to go; then the three of us should work together to take care of her and protect her. I don’t want her there alone or anywhere near your dad, Sterling. No offense.”

Sterling lets out a strangled half laugh. “None taken.”

“Hold up,” I say, sitting forward suddenly. “Take care of me? What does that mean? You guys do know that I can take care of myself, right?”

“Oh, trust me,” Chase says with a chuckle. “We know that. We’ve seen you in action.”

“I think what Warren is trying to say,” Sterling interjects. “Is that all three of us have developed feelings for you and that none of us wants to see you get hurt.”

Feelings? I can feel my heart start to race until I can practically hear my heartbeat bouncing off my eardrums. For some reason, I am surprised at how easily he just said that. So surprised that I don’t want to get my hopes up only to be disappointed by having misunderstood him.

“What kind of feelings?” I ask