Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
“I don’t care, luv. We haven’t seen you in weeks. We can handle this. We can handle anything as a family. Just trust us.”
Iris’s eyes welled with those ever-present tears and her lips quivered, before she brutally bit down on the inside of her cheek as punishment for her emotional reaction. She tasted blood but it worked. The shock of pain jerked her out of the downward spiral into self-pity.
“Let’s do something next week, okay?” she said with a closed-mouth smile. “I just have to finish this edit and I’ll be free to spend some time with you.”
“That’s what you said last time, Iris. Look, this—”
“Oh, sorry, Mum,” she interrupted quickly. “I have to go—my pizza delivery is here. Chat soon, right? I love you.”
She disconnected the call before her mother could protest and tossed the phone aside to bury her face in her hands.
Things weren’t getting better. Iris had believed they would. Had hoped the situation would blow over. But the press wouldn’t leave her alone. She thought back to the conversation she’d had with Evan the day after she’d returned home. She’d tried to force her former friend to print a retraction, but the other woman had point blank refused to even contemplate it.
“Why should I?” she’d asked with an insufferable smirk on her face. “None of it is a lie.”
“You stole my words. My private, innermost thoughts. You ruined my life, Evan, and laid my soul bare for the world to gawk at.”
“God, you’re always so fucking dramatic. And I didn’t steal shit. You gave me your password. Maybe next time don’t leave your private thoughts in an easily accessible folder in the cloud. Lesson learned, right?”
Iris cringed at the reminder of her stupidity. Her blind trust in her “friend” who’d never really been a friend. She’d given Evan her password years ago, when the woman had needed to use her laptop after her own had died just before a deadline. Iris had used variations of that same password on the laptop since then. It wouldn’t have taken Evan long to figure it out.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“Why? Maybe because you’ve never bothered to capitalize on the many advantages you were given. Stanford Carter was your father and mentor for fuck’s sake. This damned interview with Trystan Abbott falls in your lap. But you’re too—what? Principled? Good? Better than the rest of us mortal beings?—to take advantage of that fact. I did you a favor. You’re not that special, Iris. He’d have dumped you anyway. At least this way you’ll be remembered. Maybe even get ahead in your stagnating journalism career. And if I happen to reap a few benefits from it too, why not? We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“No. We’re not friends, Evan,” Iris had responded with absolute certainty. It was the only thing she felt sure of lately. “I thought we were. But it’s clear that I was wrong. We’ve never been friends, have we? You’ve been using me all along. You’re no better than a vile piece of shit stuck to the bottom of my shoe and it’s way past time I scraped you off. You ruined a man’s life, Evan. How can you be okay with that?”
Evan had actually laughed at her words. Iris cringed even now, a fortnight later, as she recalled the mockery in the woman’s laughter.
“That’s so precious. Little Iris trying to be a hard arse. I didn’t ruin his life. Far from it. Trystan Abbott is a movie star. Everybody loves him. And once the shock wears off, people will start to sympathize with him. Nobody will blame him for what happened to Trish Nesbitt. It wasn’t his fault, after all. She borderline stalked him.
“You, however, will always be remembered as the girl Trystan Abbott fucked in a moment of weakness and vulnerability. The woman who took advantage of his grief. It won’t take long for someone to point out that you’re not pretty or talented, and if he hadn’t been hurt and in mourning, he wouldn’t have looked at you twice. What do you think will happen then, Iris?”
Iris shivered at the memory of that taunting question. It had chilled her to the bone. The recognition that the public and press would inevitably turn against her, if they hadn’t already. That it didn’t matter how the story had got out, hers was the name in the story and in the byline. And she was the one who’d seemingly betrayed Trystan’s confidence. Nobody believed her protestations to the contrary. Nobody cared about the truth. Least of all Trystan. Everybody already believed the worst of her, and they would continue to do so. No matter what she said or did. And it had been unbelievably naïve of her to believe any differently.
She’d known then that she’d never see remorse, regret, an apology, or a retraction from Evan. And it was hopeless even trying to appeal to her conscience on the matter. She was riding high on the success of this article. She’d received the promotion she’d been after. Her boss had been fired. She’d done a shitty thing and had been rewarded for it. Why the hell should she feel any regret about that?