They kept me in that pitch-black basement for three days and three nights. Pumped me full of some brutal aphrodisiac, left me screaming into nothing, and nobody came.
I'd told myself it was random—some enemy who grabbed the wrong person, a case of mistaken identity.
But Clyde Gilbert had been pulling the strings from the very beginning.
To him, I was just the ugly backdrop that made his idealized first love look even more radiant. A foil.
A tool.
A piece of trash to be used up and thrown away.
I spun around to run,
but my knee buckled and I stumbled back a step without meaning to.
A dry branch snapped under my foot.
Both of them turned at the same time.
Victoria's face went bone-white. She shrank behind Clyde on instinct. "What do we do? She heard everything we just said..."
Clyde's head snapped up, his eyes locking onto me. "Deidre. Come out."
I straightened my spine and stepped out from behind the hedgerow.
Three people facing off under the moonlight. The air between us was eerily still.
"You heard all of that?"
A slight crease between his brows. His voice perfectly calm.
I looked at him and laughed.
It must have been an ugly laugh—I could feel the tears forcing their way up, burning behind my eyes—but I choked them back with everything I had.
"Every word."
Victoria glanced at my face, then at Clyde, biting her lip.
"Clyde... she's the one you're with. I'm the one who shouldn't be here. Maybe you should just let me go."
Clyde actually smiled. "You're everything I've ever wanted, Victoria. Why would I give you up for anyone else?"
"And? She heard. What's she going to do about it?"
He walked up to me and tilted my chin up with his fingers, looking down at me like I was something amusing.
"Right, Deidre?"
I slapped his hand away, forced my expression flat, and took one long breath.
"The kidnapping. That was you?"
"Yes."
"The drugs. Also you?"
"Yes."
"The videos, the trending list, the trolls ripping me apart—all you?"
He blinked, then let out a short, contemptuous laugh.
"All me."
Every answer came that easy, that bare—like hiding it from me had never even crossed his mind. A knife shoved straight into my chest. He didn't even care enough to lie anymore.
I lifted my face. My eyes were shot through with red. "But why me?"
"Why did it have to be me?"
The day Clyde proposed, I'd already decided to give up the career I'd spent over a decade clawing my way through.
And now, just like that, he'd knocked me right back to where I started—back to nothing.
Ground every last illusion and scrap of happiness I had into dust.
"Deidre, you do what you're told. No connections, no family to back you up. You'd scrape and fight just for a walk-on role. Honestly—you were the perfect pick."
He glanced down at Victoria as he said it,
the tenderness in his eyes completely unconcealed.
"Besides, my mother's never liked Victoria. But put someone worse in front of her, and suddenly Victoria doesn't seem so unacceptable. You understand?"
I couldn't tell anymore whether it was rage or humiliation. My chest was so tight I could barely breathe.
"Clyde, isn't this too cruel to Deidre? She didn't know a thing. Using her like this... I feel terrible about it..."
Victoria's voice floated out, soft and fragile as a kitten's.
Clyde pulled her against his shoulder, his tone dripping with indulgence.
"Don't worry. I'll handle her."
