Burning Rivalry (Trevor's Harem #2) (18 page)

I put my hand on my door handle, with a feeling of premonition.
 

Kylie’s covered her tracks, and part of my mind is already putting together the corresponding fact that, for full effect, she’d obviously also want to …
 

I open the door.
 

There are papers all over my room. Stuff I’ve never seen. Open manila folders, their eight-by-eleven guts spewed all over the bedspread, the counter, the floor.
 

Ivy arrives first, shoving her tiny little body with her jet-black hair and big brown eyes into the doorway beside me. I’ve gained an entourage, probably because Daniel and Trevor took off after me, and the rest followed, eager to see the show.
 

Ivy laughs.
 

Ruby, the willowy redhead, steps into the entrance beside me. She doesn’t shove through like Ivy did. She just takes everything in. It looks like an office exploded in here. Then, when I sort of stumble two steps forward, Ruby comes the rest of the way, looking around, milling like a bystander at the scene of an accident.
 

She picks up one of the papers as Daniel arrives. He doesn’t pass me, though. He stops at my side, and I feel him take my hand and squeeze it.
 

Ruby looks up from the paper and says, “He’s coming here? Caspian White is coming
here?”

I can feel Trevor Stone somewhere behind us.
 

I can feel the cameras, and the eyes of whoever’s behind them.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Daniel sets down the paper, taken from the pile on my floor, and turns to me. “She must really hate you.”
 

We’re alone. The door is closed, and Daniel keeps telling me he has authority to kill the cameras. I’m standing with my arms crossed, staring out the window. There’s nothing out there I want to see, but I don’t know what else to do. I can’t face Daniel; I’m too conflicted between what I meant to do, what I did, what I’ve been framed to seem like I’ve done, and what I might actually have done wrong, beyond the rules I’ve already broken.

But his words make me turn.
 

“Who?”
 

I know just fine who hates me. But I want to see if I’m the only one here who knows the truth — if, that is, there’s an objective truth still out there. Because I’ve been in this mansion, around these people, for two weeks now, and I’m less objective than I once was. My sense of reality is so skewed, someone could probably convince me right now that
I’m
a spy, that I snooped to figure out what was apparently a different secret than Logan had led me to believe. You could tell me up was down, that black was white. You could tell me that I
wanted
to be here, and that being with Daniel wasn’t a horrible mistake. Those are the kinds of lies I might honestly believe.

“Kylie.”

Maybe I’m not crazy after all.
 

“I’m sorry, Bridget.”
 

“For what?”

Daniel holds up one of the papers. “I can see right through all of this, but only because I know you.”
 

I know this is a tangent and that he’s about to explain his odd apology, but I can’t stop myself from jumping in.
 

“What does that mean, you know me? You keep acting like you’ve known me forever, but you never tell me what the hell you mean by any of it.” My words come out sounding angry. I suppose I still am.

“It’s complicated.”
 

“Because you studied me? Because you stalked me, dug through my email, maybe broke into my apartment?” I keep thinking of the way they matched the contents of my end table and fridge. It’s three items, really: some bars, the book I’d been reading, and, embarrassingly, a rather effective vibrator. But they’re both highly personal — the sort of things it should offend me for another to have found, and does.
 

“Not this time.”
 

I shake my head, closing the distance between us. I don’t uncross my arms. “What the fuck is with you, Daniel? Why don’t you just say what you mean?”

I think he’ll evade me again, and in the end, he does. But he meets my eyes for a pregnant moment first, and I see something almost crumble, letting me in. Almost.
 

“Ironically, it’s the lack of a formal profile, on you as a contestant, that makes it clear just what’s happened here. To me, anyway.”
 

“Why?”
 

He shakes the paper again. “It’s too on the nose. Looking through all of this, you look like a pro. Someone who really planned this out. A devious bitch who, by her own thoroughness, couldn’t help but put her own head into the noose before — ”

I cut him off. “This is supposed to make me feel better?”
 

“You’re a slob, Bridget.”
 

I’m too surprised to answer, so he closes the next to last step. I can smell him. I want to touch him, but I’m far too conflicted.
 

“You’re a total mess, not nearly organized enough to pull this off.”
 

“Gee, thanks.”
 

He waves a hand around the room. “All of this? This is how Kylie would do it. If she wanted to infiltrate Eros, she’d do her research. If she wanted to sleep with Caspian White, this is that research, too. There’s nothing here that’s not at least a little classified. It makes you look
extremely
guilty. But that’s my point. If we’d done a full profile on you, it’d have been obvious that this isn’t your style. You’re not a cat burglar. You’re a smash-and-grab sort of girl. But now I’m glad I never did that profile and was so hasty. Because if we had your profile, you can believe Kylie would have found it, too. And then she wouldn’t have filled your room with such a careful frame job. She’d have tailored it to your style, sufficiently enough that you might even start to think you did it.”
 

“What exactly did I ‘do,’ Daniel?” I ask, my voice putting quotes around my supposed crime.
 

“You didn’t hear this from me, but it’s true that we’ve been negotiating a deal with GameStorming. And it’s true that as part of it, even though I can’t stand the thought, Caspian White will be paying a visit — partially for a meeting, but also because this competition …
interests him
. But the last thing anyone wants is more eyes on our relationship. It was supposed to be quiet. Trevor and I agreed that it was more or less
essential
that nobody know we were involved with him in any way. And when you said that Kylie was here for Caspian White? Well, it seemed like you’d been sticking your nose where we wanted it least. And worse, it blew the lid on something it was vital to keep secret.”
 

“Logan told me — ”
 

“I’ve talked to Logan.”
 

“Then you know she was behind it.”
 

“Me? Sure, I do. But good luck convincing anyone else.” He exhales and shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can protect you this time.”
 

“It’s fine. I was leaving anyway.”
 

“Trevor wants you to stay for the elimination. I suppose it’s because if you’re eliminated, it looks better across the board than if you quit. A little to save face, over this … incident. But even though this is all confidential stuff, there’s nothing here that could be possibly used against you. Eros sees it as a breach of trust, but not actionable. I suppose you’ll be watched for a while. But they’re already confident that the leaks have been plugged. Kylie did you that favor, too, to disguise her own tracks.”
 

“Trevor wants me to stay, huh?”
 

Daniel rubs my arm slowly with one hand. “I do, too.”
 

“To save face.”
 

“For other reasons.”
 

We sort of nod at each other. Then I sigh and sit on the bed’s edge, crumpling false evidence.
 

“I did it for you,” I tell him.

“I know. Thank you.”
 

“Not just trying to bust her. I mean breaking things off between us.”
 

He nods. What’s done is done. And I’m leaving forever tomorrow anyway.

I figure it’s over, but then Daniel repeats what he’s said a few times now: “I’m sorry for getting you into this.”
 

“It’s okay.”
 

“Not the contest. I mean this. With Kylie.”
 

“What about it?”

“I knew who she was. I picked her
because
she’s like she is. We needed a spectrum, to see what’s possible.”
 

“Possible for what?”
 

He gives me a smile that’s far too kind for his lips. The smile is apologetic, too. “That’s a bit
too
confidential.”
 

“Ah. I see.”
 

“Everyone I chose is highly intelligent, but in distinct ways. Kylie? She’s a strategist of sorts. Highly analytical, highly creative, morally ambiguous. I told you about Roxy. And you’ve seen the way Abbie is different.”
 

“She says that letters and numbers have color.”
 

“She has a condition called synesthesia. It causes her senses to intermingle, giving months flavor, colors texture, sounds a shape. It has to do with wiring in her brain. But there are others. A photographic memory. A savant’s abilities, like a prettier version of Rain Man. And more.”
 

“Why?”
 

“Let’s just say that as far as Trevor’s bride is concerned, we wanted a lot to choose from.”
 

“But how is any of it relevant?”
 

“I can’t say.”
 

“Can’t or won’t?”
 

“Won’t.”
 

I ponder that. But then, why would he?

“It almost sounds like they all have superpowers.”
 

Daniel laughs. “I don’t know that I’d go that far. And no, not all of them.”
 

“What’s my superpower, then?”
 

He just shrugs. “You’re Bridget.”

That hits me like a slap. But when I look up, Daniel is collecting the confidential papers, blurring the lines between fixer and janitor.
 

“Did you know she’d target me?”
 

“I considered it, once your dynamic began to take shape. I imagine at first she thought you were weak and an easy loose end to eliminate. By the time she saw you weren’t, you’d become a threat. Which is why I intervened the way I did.”
 

“When did you intervene?”
 

“When I chose rock climbing.”
 

“Why is that — ”

“Kat is a dancer, and she’s small. I knew she’d pick it up. I knew you’d done it before. But Kylie, for all her guile, suffered nerve issues as a child. She got over it quickly, but it retarded her coordination. She walks great on high heels, but that’s about as far as it goes.”
 

“You knew she’d be bad at climbing.”
 

“More than that. I knew she’d make a fool of herself trying.”
 

“That’s cruel, Daniel.” I’m failing to suppress a laugh.
 

“But I screwed up. She thought you orchestrated it. Her profile shows that beneath it all, she’s still highly insecure, especially about things like physical coordination. She didn’t think I’d done it on my own, or by accident. She assumed you knew something, the way she knows things, and had manipulated me into choosing something to humiliate her — again, because it’s something she’d do. And that made her take it personally.”
 

“I got the feeling she was mad about it. At me, somehow.”
 

Daniel nods. “She blamed you.”
 

“But after a few days, I figured she’d let it go.”
 

“She never lets anything go. The longer she waited to retaliate, the more I started to get nervous. It meant she was biding her time — something she’s exceptional at. I knew that whatever she eventually did, it would be bad. I’m sorry for all of it. I didn’t think. I just … reacted.”
 

“You
took it personally, too,” I say. And as I do, I think of Daniel saying,
You’re mine.
 

“I can try. I talked to Trevor once, and it’s like he wants to believe me, but there’s too much doubt to risk it. I’ll talk to him again if you’d like. Make him see that this was her, not you.”
 

I sort of shrug him off. There’s no point. I can tell that things between Daniel and Trevor are already on thin ice, and I know that some of that is because of me. If he pushes Trevor further, whatever’s splintering between them might break. And what’s to gain? Right now, I’m being invited to stay, and earn another ten thousand dollars before being kicked out, which I want anyway. The $10K is a bonus. I was ready to leave tonight. There’s no reason to risk Daniel’s livelihood, given that I want to go home anyway.