The Sex Tape, page 1
The Sex Tape
Serena Akeroyd
Helen Scott
Copyright © 2019 by Serena Akeroyd & Helen Scott
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Change has come…
1. Briar
2. Briar
3. Briar
4. Briar
Revelations alter nothing…
1. Blake
2. Briar
3. Briar
4. Briar
5. Briar
6. Lennox
Evolution is here.
1. Flynn
2. Winston
3. Blake
4. Briar
5. Lennox
6. Briar
7. Flynn
8. Briar
9. Blake
The end is nigh.
1. This just in…
Flynn
Also by Helen Scott
Also by Serena Akeroyd
Change has come…
1
Briar
“Everyone’s looking at me.”
My best friend, Angela, sighed. “Briar.”
I frowned at her, not particularly appreciating her exasperated tone. “What?”
She stared at me, and then when I bugged my eyes at her on purpose, she scrunched up her nose. “You can’t expect them not to look at you.”
“Whose side are you on?”
Angela shrugged. “Yours, of course, and that’s why I’m not about to leave you to the vermin here.”
Vermin was definitely the word. This might have been an exclusive Academy, one of the elite’s best well-kept secrets, but that didn’t make the kids who attended decent human beings.
I’d learned that myself the hard way.
“It doesn’t sound like you’re on my side,” I grumbled, then sighed when she wrapped her arm around my shoulders.
“Being on your side means I won’t bullshit you, Briar.”
“Please, bullshit me,” I muttered, when we walked past Jason Hett and Ryan Weste, who immediately started snickering. “I don’t think I can cope with more reality than what I’ve been dealing with ever since the tape went viral.”
She squeezed me again. “It’s the first day of school, honey. Just let them stare and move on from this.”
I wanted to stiffen, wanted to scream at her that this wasn’t fair. That I shouldn’t have anything to move on from, because I wasn’t the one who’d recorded myself making love with Mathieu Andersen. I hadn’t put the tape on a goddamn porn site. And I sure as heck hadn’t made sure the entire student body of Gildermann Academy had been CC’d in the email with the link.
No, that was my ex.
He’d done that.
He’d humiliated me, destroyed my reputation forever, and why?
I couldn’t ask him.
Because he was in a fucking coma.
Yes. That was the story of my life now—disaster after disaster with seemingly no end in sight. Because, sure, the sex tape was no longer online, and the authorities were apparently looking into the ‘crime,’ but that didn’t save my rep. Didn’t stop the BS snickers as I strode into GA. Throw in the fact that the criminal behind my persecution was in a coma after a car crash that had happened three days after he’d hit ‘publish’ on his skanky secret tape of us together wasn’t exactly speeding up the investigation...
Was it terrible of me to wish that he’d been in the crash before he’d ruined me? Or did that just make me human?
I wasn’t sure which and I hated that he’d also shoved me into a moral dilemma.
Nobody wished ill on someone in a coma. No one except horrible people, that is. Which made me horrible, vile, because I truly hoped he’d die.
For what he’d done to me? Made me think he loved me, made me think we were—
No.
I couldn’t think about that.
If I did, I’d start crying, and I’d already spent the past few weeks in bouts of tears that had my staff cringing whenever they saw me. And because I couldn’t stand to be around anyone anymore, didn’t trust anyone close to me, not even Angela all that much, Mathieu could also be blamed for the maid and cook who were now looking for employment.
Yes, in my mind, Mathieu was responsible for the world’s overpopulation problem, global warming, and might as well throw in terrorism for good measure.
The bastard.
“Do you want the good or the bad news?” Angela muttered the second we’d made it into the foyer of Gildermann’s hallowed halls.
I cut her a wary look. “You mean there’s some good news in this mess? Please, sweet Jesus, give it to me,” I pleaded, and I wasn’t even joking. I seriously needed some good.
“Well, you get the bad news first so things make sense,” she murmured, as she nodded at Jamie Nolan. The two of them had been dancing around each other since last year. Angela was usually pretty forward with guys, but not with Jamie.
Though her attention was only averted for a second, I wanted to pout, and drag it back to me and the disaster movie that was my life.
Thankfully, she seemed to sense my inner turbulence because she quickly shrugged off her crush and gave me her full focus. “So,” she drawled out, “you know the car crash Mathieu was in?”
“How could I forget?” I rasped because, even though he’d done what he had and sure, I’d wished him dead every single day since the tape was released, it still hurt. I’d loved him, truly loved him, and a part of me still did. He was my first love, and that would stick with me forever. As would how he’d betrayed me.
“People have been saying you caused it.”
I blinked at her, sure she was lying. But when she stared back at me, her green eyes wide, her lips pursed, I realized this wasn’t a joke. She wasn’t pulling my leg or trying to cheer me up.
“Is there a reason you’re telling me this now and not during the thirty-minute ride to school?” I grated out, my hands curling into fists.
“I didn’t know how to say it, and I was kind of hoping that Jamie was just making a big thing out of it.”
“You’ve been speaking to him about me?” I asked with a scowl. So that was what the look between them had been about. I knew I’d been right to distance myself from her.
“Yeah. He’s been really kind. Very supportive.”
Yeah, supportive, feeding her shit from the gossip mill. Just great.
“They think I tried to kill Mathieu?” I repeated, just trying to make sure there was no misunderstanding here.
“Yeah. They do.”
I gaped at her for a second then, a bit like a dog who’d been shampooed against his will, shook my head dumbly. “That’s the bad news. What’s the good?”
“They think you tried to kill Mathieu.” She shrugged. “Now you’re notorious for a different reason.”
I reached up and patted my braid, trying to assimilate what she was saying, because it seriously wasn’t computing.
After a few moments of gaping at her as I failed to self-soothe, she heaved a sigh. “Say something.”
“What do you want me to say?” I retorted bitterly. “That people thinking I’m a murderer is better than them thinking of me with my legs spread and Mathieu on top of me?” My stomach churned. I’d had to watch the tape, had to see what he’d revealed to the world, and though I’d watched it three times, it hadn’t gotten any easier to bear. I started it each time thinking this wasn’t real, but then I was reminded it was when I climaxed beneath the cheating, lying bastard I’d thought loved me. My throat thickening, I whispered, “But you know what? They’re thinking of me like that and picturing me killing him too. How am I supposed to have done it? Cut his brake line? Sabotaged his engine?”
Angela winced. “The brake line.”
A high-pitched laugh escaped me, and I knew it sounded crazed, panicked. “I wouldn’t know a brake line if it smacked me in the face.”
She patted my shoulder. “I know, honey. But…”
“But, what?”
“It’s better to be notorious than a victim.”
And fuck me if she wasn’t wrong.
The thought didn’t make me feel better though. If anything, it made the already shitty start to the day a thousand times worse.
We were in different homerooms, unfortunately, which meant she went to the bottom of the first-floor corridor, whereas I was at the beginning. I strode into the small room, and headed to the corner in the vain hope I’d avoid anyone gaping at me, and tried to make myself as small as possible.
Knowing that everyone in my year—hell, probably the one above and below me too—had seen me naked, had heard my cries of release, was enough to make me want to puke. I’d wanted to pull out of this year’s classes, evade the Academy, and avoid everyone I knew. It wasn’t like I couldn’t afford the hit to my bank account—I could buy and sell most people in this class. But the teachers would remember, and if I was to fulfill the terms of my trust fund, I had to attend this college because my great-great-great-grandfather had helped establish it, and had insisted that all his heirs study here.
Even though Mathieu had ruined my life, that didn’t mean he could ruin the rest of it too. No way was I about to throw away the thirty million that was waiting on m
The trouble was, that meant I had to sit here and endure the looks, the catty sneers from women who’d tried to be my friend last year, and tolerate the heated stares from guys who didn’t have the decency to hide the fact they’d watched a sex tape that had been recorded without my consent.
If the day couldn’t have started off any worse, it soon managed to deteriorate further.
Impossible, I knew that, but yup, it happened.
Because every snicker and jeer had me hunching my shoulders and keeping my attention firmly on my phone’s screen, I didn’t realize there were three seats beside me in my row.
Three vacant seats.
And when the professor arrived, hustling us into a lecture on how proper Gildermann students behaved—a lecture that was aimed my way, I was sure—the door slammed open and my worst nightmares arrived on the scene.
As panic coursed through my veins, I felt my skin alternate between white-hot and just white.
They’d been in Angela’s homeroom last year. I knew because Mathieu had complained that his friends weren’t here with him as we suffered the strict nonsense that was elemental to studying at Gildermann.
This Academy was like no other. It was a university, but it went beyond that. It treated its students as though they were still in high school, meaning we had to endure things most nineteen-year-olds didn’t.
Like uniforms.
Like professors actually checking up on us like they were the Gestapo.
Like homeroom every morning and an assembly once a week with prayers.
It was weird, but people didn’t care. This was the place to be if you wanted to leapfrog into the Old Boys’ Network. So much so, that women had only been invited to study here four years ago.
Why?
Not because Gildermann wanted to be equal, not because they’d suddenly turned into feminists, but because I was a Gildermann and a Gildermann always studied here.
Unfortunately for the school, I was the only Gildermann who’d been born without that important organ that was the penis, and therefore a ruling had been made. Every person with a uterus had their position in the Academy thanks to me. Not that they were showing their gratitude to me now.
Speaking of penises, I felt the trio’s swagger from the across the room.
Even worse?
I felt their rage.
How could I feel that?
I wasn’t sure. Maybe I was just hypersensitive, maybe I was paranoid, or maybe I was justified.
If they thought I’d tried to kill Mathieu too then…
My heart sank and my stomach seized. I couldn’t hold it in, couldn’t stop myself. Without asking to be dismissed, I grabbed my bag, and loped down the row, my intent to get to the door.
Professor Sanderson barked, “Ms. Gildermann! What on earth are you—”
But I ignored him. I ignored the snickers and the laughter at my expense. I just needed to get out of there.
I was so close, so freakin’ close to the hall and freedom, when someone stepped in front of me.
Their chest was covered in one of those ridiculous vests Gildermann insisted upon for their uniform, and the ornate ‘P’ button told me who had stepped in front of me.
Blake Hennessy.
I tried to duck left, but he moved with me. When I tried to move right, he did the same until I stared up at him, stared into eyes that were both beautiful and horrible, and spat, “If you don’t move the fuck out of my way, I’ll puke all over those shiny Oxfords of yours.”
Those bright gray eyes flared wide in surprise, but they quickly settled into a low simmer because his rage was still burning, still there, but he must have seen from my expression that if he didn’t move his ass quickly, he was about to be covered in the very real manifestation of my humiliation.
Considering he’d undoubtedly helped Mathieu, he deserved to be wallpapered in my vomit. But puking in front of my class wasn’t something I was willing to add to my to-do list.
Before he stepped out of my way, before he let me free, he rasped, “Later, Briar.”
Those two words felt like an omen.
And how right I was about that.
❖
Briar
One of the few things that was nice about attending this freaky little university of ours was that the washrooms were luxurious. After I’d puked my guts out, I was able to nab one of their prepackaged toothbrushes and toothpastes, along with a miniature bottle of mouthwash, and clean myself up. I’d never been more thankful that I was adept at vomiting without getting it everywhere. Even if how I’d gotten that practice made my nose crinkle with unwanted memories.
The next few hours flew by without another interruption and I was just starting to feel like maybe once everyone got done staring at me, they would forget about what happened. Lunch was a whole different story though. As soon as I entered the cafeteria, I heard the whispers start up. Snickers and expletives sounded behind me, but whenever I turned around to glare at the bitches behind the muttering, they were looking at something else.
I gathered my tray and a small amount of food, my logic being there would be less to throw up later if it came to that, and went to find Angela. The sea of faces that were staring at me as I looked for my best friend made me break out into a cold sweat. The longer it took to find Angela, the sweatier I became. Panic was starting to set in, and when I finally found her, she was waving to me from across the dining hall.
Could she get any farther away?
Sometimes, I could swear it was like my best friend didn’t understand what I was going through at all. Either that, or she just didn’t really care.
The feeling of aloneness was only exacerbated as the sound of someone vomiting filled the cafeteria, making my own stomach turn and threaten to dry heave just to show support for the other person. As I hurried to Angela’s table and sank down into my seat, the sound morphed into my cries of pleasure like someone was puking to the sound of me having sex.
It was mortifying.
It was when I heard myself cry Mathieu’s name that I realized the person vomiting was me earlier. Someone had followed me into the bathroom and taken a recording of me puking.
What was it with these people and the concept of consent? Was it really that hard to understand? I knew, to a certain extent, these people lived above the law, but to this degree?
God help me.
“Is that morning sickness I hear?” someone called out.
I looked toward the source of the sound and found Regan Addington staring at me with a grin of victory plastered on her face. According to gossip, she and Mathieu had been on and off again sweethearts all through middle school and high school back home in Quebec. It was when they both arrived at Gildermann that he called it quits for good, only she didn’t quite get the message. It didn’t matter that he had promised me they were over, or that he’d sworn I was the only woman in his life, it was all bullshit, just like his feelings for me.
Had this been their plan all along? Had this been a game? One that Regan had been involved in from the start?
When I slumped over and fought the urge to cover my face with my hands, Angela looked at me with questioning eyes. “Why were you puking? Are you… sick?”
“I’m not pregnant,” I hissed, then, taking a deep breath, tried to calm down. This woman was currently the only port I could visit during this godawful storm, and I couldn’t forget that. “Was there anyone missing from your homeroom this morning?” I inquired gruffly.
“Just... No!” The penny dropped faster than I’d expected. “Blake, Flynn, and Lennox are in your homeroom now?” she spat at me, her eyes rounder than silver pennies.
I nodded. “Let’s just say my body rebelled at the idea.”
“But it’s not really morning sickness, is it?”
