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

This part of my plan has to be finely orchestrated so that they do it on their own. It has to be believable, and for it to be believable, Bridget can’t be put into a position lower than the one she put me in last semester. At least, not at first. I need to tread lightly.

“I want you to introduce me to your friends again,” I say.

“That’s stupid,” she huffs. “They already know who you are, and they don’t like you.”

“They know who you told them I was, and they don’t like me because you don’t like me.”

“I mean …” This time, she’s the one who smirks. “You’re not wrong.”

“So, now you can convince them that they should stop tormenting me,” I say. “They’ll take your lead. Unless, of course, you’ve lost your touch as well as your grip.”

“God, you’re so weird,” she says as she rolls her eyes again. “You don’t even talk like a normal person. And that’s easier said than done. You do know that, right?”

She holds up one hand and snaps her fingers, loudly. “I can’t just snap my fingers and make everyone like you all of a sudden.”

“I don’t care if it’s easy or not,” I say, leaning closer, “just make sure it happens.”

“And then what?” she asks.

“I’ll let you know,” I say with a smile as I get up off the bed.

I know that it drives her crazy not knowing what my next move is going to be—good. I like to imagine Bridget in a state of nervousness. It serves her right for all of the anguish that she’s caused me. I kind of feel like changing my name to Karma and calling it a day.

But Karma is a bitch.

And me … I’m going to be much worse than that.

Chapter Two

I might be leaning into my new persona hard, but there are two people here that still see me the same as always.

And for them, I am eternally grateful.

Even when their jaws practically unhinge at the sight of me the next morning.

My attitude isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Bridget might have used the word trashy as an insult, but I have every intention of using that to my advantage.

The next morning my first class is with Alaska and Clark and I’m glad to see them again after the break. It might only have been a week long, but it feels like a century ago.

A whole different life ago.

Because, in a way, it is.

And not only because they both look a little shocked at my new look. Aside from rolling my skirt up shorter, unbuttoning my shirt by a few buttons, and wearing my hair down in an unkempt mane around my face that looks like I’ve just sexed up the entire football team—not too much else has changed. A bunch of our classmates are still whispering rumors that I can hear above the teacher’s droning lecture and giving me the cold shoulder, but pretty soon that should stop.

Rumors get old once they’re not just rumors anymore.

“Doesn’t it bother you that everyone is still talking about you behind your back?” Alaska asks when I don’t seem to be paying any attention to it.

“Nah,” I say.

She just glances once over her shoulder to give someone a death glare for a moment before turning back, shaking her head.

“You’re a stronger person than I am,” Clark chimes in. “It would make me completely unsettled. I don’t know how you can concentrate on the lecture with all this … this noise.”

“Just wait,” I say cryptically, “things are about to change.”

They both look at me with perplexed expressions on their faces, but slowly, I watch the two of them shift.

Alaska leans a bit closer. “So … still not telling us your plan?”

I keep my head facing forward, but a small smile creeps at the corner of my mouth. “Not a word.”

She sits back with a small huff, but I think I see the spark return to her eye out of the corner of my own.

We’ll see how long that lasts once she figures out part of my plan means we’re all going to have to spend a little more quality time with the Queen Bitch herself.

Starting, to everyone’s surprise, with an open invitation to one of Bridget’s famous parties at lunch—delivered, by hand, by none other than the queen herself.

There’s a moment when I’ve sat down with Alaska and Clark at the table when I begin to feel a brief moment of self-doubt. As much as I hold my head high and keep tugging down my shirt to keep my cleavage as visible as possible—all part of my act that secretly makes me cringe a little deep down—I still feel the same inside.

I still am the same inside.

I just … I can’t bring myself to roll over and allow myself to be bullied anymore. Not for long, anyway.

Not when I see the looks on Bridget’s friends’ faces when she walks stony-faced past them to drop the gold-trimmed invitation on the table in front of me. Her mouth contorts into a smile—convincing from far away, but up close, it’s something closer to grimace—as she loudly announces she’s “dying to see me there.”

Voices drop for a moment as stunned faces turn to look our way, their eyes raking over me first and then Bridget, surely wondering what changed over break. Because before break, Bridget seemed to be doing everything in her power to ruin my reputation.

A reputation I’ve now embraced.

As soon as the whispers start back up again, Bridget leans in closer and fully bares her teeth this time. “I hope that’s enough for you,” she hisses.

I keep my face neutral and my voice contrite. “That’ll do,” I say, “for now.”

Bridget just presses her lips together for a moment before re-composing her face and flouncing back to sit with her friends … who I’m pleased to see scoot just a little further away from her down the table as she sits.

“Woah,” Alaska says