Her Spite: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (The Forgotten Elites Book 2) by Eden Beck (best adventure books to read .TXT) 📗

Even I didn’t think they could be this shallow.

This is most definitely poetic justice if I ever saw it.

The only downside is actually having to sit with Tammy and the others on a regular basis.

I think Alaska must be thinking the same thing when she leans over to whisper in my ear.

“Should we go ask her if she’d like to come sit with us too?”

I’m taken aback.

“Who … Bridget?” I say quietly back to her, raising an eyebrow. “Why in the world would we want Bridget to come and sit with us?”

“It’s not really a matter of wanting her to sit with us,” she says. “It’s more a matter of what we talked about before, about not going too far with things.”

I shake my head.

“Nah, she’s fine where she is,” I say confidently.

This is my moment to enjoy and I am going to enjoy every minute of it. Bridget had her turn in the spotlight, and she had her chance to make me feel alone and ostracized.

It’s not my fault if her friends are not quite as devoted to her as she would like to think.

And it’s certainly not my job to try to make her feel better about herself.

As far as I’m concerned, Bridget brought all of this down on herself. And although I do appreciate Alaska’s kind nature; she wasn’t the one who faced the brunt of Bridget’s wrath last semester.

I was. And I plan on taking this whole thing as far as I want to.

Chapter Nine

Now that I’m not in Sterling’s volunteer program anymore, there isn’t a whole lot of reason for me to see him. But just like Chase, Sterling seems to find a way to be around me before long.

Not only do I have Bridget put in her place, but it sure seems like I have all the guys at my beck and call. So far, it’s been way easier than I thought it would be.

Almost too easy. I’d be worried if I had anything left to lose.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I have no secrets left to expose.

It seems like we might need to pull another table up next to ours in the lunchroom now, because not only are most of the girls sitting with us on a daily basis, but today, Sterling decides to join our table as well. Ever since all of her friends decided to relocate to our table, Bridget has started sitting with us too. I think she figured it would be less embarrassing for her if she just pretended like she automatically belonged instead of being put-off by the fact that her friends abandoned her.

This is, so far, the only downside I’ve seen to my plan actually working.

There’s no escape from Bridget.

“Where are Chase and Warren?” I ask Sterling when he sits down next to me. I can see that the table where the guys usually sit is empty.

“They’re off signing for their shared dorm for next year,” he says.

“Why don’t they both just get their own rooms?”

I don’t understand. Why would anyone, especially anyone with as much money as the two of them have coming in from their parents, want to share a room when they could very easily afford the biggest private dorms on campus?

I didn’t even know they had those here until Bridget let it slip one night when I walked in on her in a full face of skincare products that made her look more like a monster than a human. If only I had a burner phone too, I’d have been able to snap a photo of her.

That level of blackmail might have gone even further than her secret pregnancy.

“No idea,” Sterling answers. “Chase keeps insisting that he wants to share. I got the feeling that if Warren hadn’t said he would share with him, that Chase would have hit me up next.”

Weird. Warren is the last person I expected to be talked into something like sharing a room. He definitely seems like the brooding, lonely type. With a sister like his, who could blame him for looking for silence where he can?

The only reason that I share a room is because I can’t afford one on my own. In fact, Bridget is paying for all of our mutual school expenses right now—primarily because I’m forcing her to.

She eyes Sterling from across the table and smiles sweetly at him.

“You found me all the way over here,” she says coyly.

I guess she thinks that Sterling came over here to see her, because she’s wearing a huge smile and batting her eyes at him as if she was going to be proposed to right there on the spot. I almost feel a little bad for her because I know what’s coming. He’s going to brush her off, I can just feel it.

After all, it’s not like they’ve even been seen together in weeks.

“Gotta go,” he says, standing up from the table and quietly acknowledging Bridget with nothing more than a small, forced smile that looks way too fake and polite to be real.

“I have to say, Aubrey,” he says as he leans down toward me. Even though he’s trying to talk in my ear, it’s definitely loud enough for Bridget to hear what he’s saying. “I’m a bit disappointed that our little date stayed just that—one little date.”

I can’t control the look of shock on my face, nor the grin that starts to pull at corners of my mouth. When he finally turns and walks away, I’m left thinking about how close his face was to mine, and how much I liked it.

I tell myself it’s only because I know Bridget will be devastated, but part of me knows better. It’s the same part of me that’s currently cursing myself for the way my heart is pounding away in the top of my throat.

Tammy laughs and it breaks me out of my daydream.

“You never did learn