Wicked (Now Available on Amazon, Eden Books, Apple, B&N and Kobo!)

Chapter 15 💋

Aaliyah

Bad Boy by Carys was blasting in my room the night of the quarter-final match. Zi was playing tonight and I was going to be there for my brother. Even if the thought of watching Jacob run on that same field drove shards of pain inside my heart. I'd managed to avoid him all week but now I had to end this pity-party and get out there for my family's sake. We never missed a single match of Zi's and I wasn't about to break that tradition for some loser who used his balls for brains.

Deep down, my love for Jacob was slowly being poisoned into something else. A need for retribution was clawing inside me. Jacob had used and discarded me when I'd given all of myself to him and now he was laughing and enjoying himself as though nothing else mattered while I had to suffer through the agony of being duped by someone I had adored since my childhood. He had no empathy, it seemed. No understanding or remorse. I'd told him I loved him to his face and he'd just fucked me and left. He had trashed every expectation of mine and destroyed the one thing I had considered the most cherished and important. My love for him.

I dressed to kill that evening. It was pretty cold outside but I deliberately pulled on my knee-high leather boots, donned a short skirt and a crop top and let my hair loose. Next, I put on my black, fingerless gloves. The last thing was my special red lipstick, the one I wore when I was feeling particularly nasty and bad-ass.

My phone vibrated on the dresser drawer and I glanced at the Instagram notification absently. Jacob Sawyer-Wells just posted a photo. Like an addict, I couldn't stop my hand from reaching for my phone straight away and clicking on the notification. For a moment, I just looked at the picture without taking anything in. He was posing with his dad, who I guessed was back from Australia now, all dressed up in his soccer uniform and looking heartbreakingly handsome.

The painful breath I dragged in reminded me of how much he still had the power to affect me. My eyes skimmed over the caption at the bottom.

'He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. Clarence Budington Kelland.'

I raised my eyebrows at that. Is that so? Critically, I studied his father in the picture. If he was living anything like the way Jacob was, that didn't actually sound very impressive. The longer I stared at his picture, the harder it became for me to look away. Those dark eyes of his seemed to glitter with life as he put an arm around Jacob's shoulders and grinned at the camera, looking so self-assured. The man whom Jacob thought the world of.

A smile began to curve my lips. Finally, I lifted my eyes to look at my reflection. The picture of sexy badness. You're so beautiful. That was what he had said to me the night he'd decided to pull a 'slam-bam thank you, ma'm' on me. I was, wasn't I? It wasn't anything to be arrogant about. I knew I was beautiful. He'd made me feel ugly on the inside but the outside was still polished and sparkling.

That was the moment I decided that I was going to use the only weapon I had to get back at Jacob Wells. And hit him where he it hurt the most. Just like he had done to me. He didn't get to walk away that easily after making a fool of me. It was time to teach this boy how the game was actually played.