Fuck.
Fucking shit.
A chill rushed down my spine, cooling the scorching blood that had blazed through my veins in anger earlier on. I stared at the screen, unable to meet the pair of eyes I'd grown so familiar with over the past few weeks—the ones I'd looked into during times of laughter, passion, and affection.
While I tried to fit together the jigsaw pieces, Teddy continued.
"You should have stuck to blogging, Sophia. Every good journalist checks their sources, and you could have very quickly found out that my past with drugs was fictional. I've lost count of the number of times I've told journalists that I've never taken drugs. I mean, I knew you weren't a fan, but I thought you'd have at least checked that your bullshit articles contained some degree of truth."
His language caught me off guard, startling my gaze away from the screen and up to meet his stony expression. I'd never heard him swear outside the bedroom before, and it hurt me more than it should have done. With his jaw set in a hard line, tension radiating from every pore of his body in icy waves, he was almost unrecognisable.
"Why would I have researched it when you'd told me the story yourself? You said everyone knew about your past with drugs."
"Exactly. Because I was hoping you'd fall for it and not bother doing the research if it was supposedly common knowledge. Actually, no, that's a lie. I was hoping you wouldn't reveal it at all. That you were as trustworthy as I wanted you to be."
Dark eyes pinned me to the sofa, lacking the warmth or twinkle or smoulder that they usually contained whenever he looked at me. My heart thudded in my chest, but not from the anticipation or excitement he often ignited. In just a few seconds, the dynamic between us had shifted. It didn't matter that we were two people who knew each other intimately—we might as well have been strangers.
"Did you only bring me here so you could see the look on my face when you called me out? Lull me into a false sense of security with some bullshit about a staged photo?" I asked, but my trembling voice betrayed my attempt at righteousness.
Sighing, he leaned back against the sofa cushions, crossing his arms, that detached stare never leaving my own.
"Partly," he said with a shrug of one shoulder, "but mostly because I wanted to see the look on your face when I tell you that you're not the only one who's been hiding their true motive behind this so-called friendship." He raised his hands to air-quote the word, just in case I missed the obvious sarcasm in his tone.
I narrowed my eyes. "What are you talking about?"
"The photo with Lacey was staged, and it was initially intended as a publicity stunt. But instead it turned into one last attempt to flush you out. I even wore the same clothes so it looked as real as possible. And you fell for it. I wish I wasn't so angry and upset. I have no right to be. I should only be disappointed that I fell for your game plan just as much as you fell for mine."
"I'm not following."
My heart pounded so fast it almost hurt, the drawn-out anticipation amplifying the feeling of dread within me. How long had he known? When had his supposed game plan started?
Teddy hooked an ankle over his knee, but the rest of his body remained stationary—never once relenting on the hostility seeping from him. I guessed it was a power move—I'd seen enough of them in the bedroom to recognise the tell-tale signs—and no doubt a deliberate one to retain the higher ground in our exchange.
"I knew I'd upset Becca that night. I'd screwed up, getting carried away without realising how infatuated she was. But then I bumped into you the next morning, and I couldn't help myself. I'd told Becca I was interested in getting to know you, so the damage had already been done and I thought I had nothing to lose by trying my luck with you. I came clean to Helen, and she was furious at how I'd handled it. If it got out that I'd upset a fan so badly, my image would be ruined. It was too late to go back and undo what I'd done, so instead Helen suggested we use my interest in you to our advantage, hoping that if I earned your trust and loyalty, you'd stop Becca from selling her story to the highest bidder."
I shook my head to myself, stuck on the last sentence even though that whole confession had rattled me to the core.
"Becca was too embarrassed to admit what had happened. She'd never have confessed it to the world. It was hard enough telling us. That's why she exaggerated it, like she had to justify her hurt."
"I gathered," Teddy said. "Hence your little mission, right? Maybe you thought you were being sneaky by only revealing stories that could have come from anyone, but Helen has never trusted you. After all, why would you be so willing to strike up a friendship with a guy who didn't consider your best friend's feelings?"
The reference to my outburst outside his Paris hotel room lingered in the space between us, as if he wanted to make sure I picked up on it. No chance of me missing it, though—I was glued to his every word, like a detective desperately trying to peel away the layers of a complex crime.
"So we agreed that I'd mention something fake to you," he said. "If that fake story came out, we'd know it was you. Except it didn't. Because apparently in my attempt to reassure you that it was common knowledge, you'd then considered it unworthy of sharing. Hence why we resorted to the staged photo."
I sighed and briefly pinched my eyes together. My guilt had faded away, but in its place was a hypocritical sense of hurt that he'd been just as dishonest as me. Ironically, I'd used that suspicion as justification for going ahead with the articles, but maybe I'd never truly believed it. Or maybe I'd got sucked in so far that I didn't want to believe it.
"Tell me one thing," he said, scraping a hand over his jaw. "This started off because of Becca, right?"
"Right."
"Did it ever stop being about Becca?"
I averted my eyes across the room. Part of me wanted to defend myself so I didn't look like the bad guy—especially when he'd played me, too. But by defending myself, I'd be admitting that my feelings for him had become real. Did I really want to do that after what he'd just confessed?
Taking a deep breath, I flicked my wrist towards the laptop screen. "That wasn't about Becca. That was about me. I was hurt. Are you going to say that you only continued with the friendship—flirted with me, slept with me—after that first article came out so you could then hurt me into playing my hand at some point in the future?"
For a few torturous seconds, he said nothing. Then he released a long sigh, as if it pained him to concede it.
"No. I'm not."
"Good. Because in amongst all the lies, I cared about you. I only pushed you away at first because of Becca. But I guess that's obvious now, right?"
"Right."
Shaking my head, I stared down at my knees. I had to believe some of it was real. That we were only as bad as each other, with neither of us going further than what was required, and with both of us having a legitimate reason for doing what we'd done. That would be an easier pill to swallow than the alternative.
"What about the NDA?" I asked. "Why wait until Europe if you suspected me after the first article?"
"Contrary to what you probably believe, I don't go around asking every person I spend time with to sign an NDA. Helen wasn't lying when she said it was standard procedure for employees, though. This was never supposed to be a deep friendship, but I ended up really clicking with you. In Europe you'd be close to my inner team and Helen wouldn't be doing her job properly if she didn't draw one up."
"So what was the point in telling me that fake story if you were asking me to sign an NDA anyway?"
"Because Helen and I agreed on the fake story before we knew you'd be coming to Europe with us. I know I told you on the plane, but I wasn't expecting her to whip out the NDA first thing the next morning. Plus we didn't know if you'd sign it."
I hated how he had an answer for everything—how well his plan had been considered—and I was determined to trip him up.
"You begged me not to sign it."
For the first time, his hostile posture faltered as he avoided eye contact with me, a brief flash of shame clouding his face.
"I needed you to trust me. I wanted to trust you. If you'd been genuine, it wouldn't have mattered how much I begged—you'd have signed it anyway just to appease Helen. If you refused to sign it, I'd know that Helen was right to suspect you. Then you said you needed a lawyer to look over it, and I didn't know if that was genuine or delaying tactics."
"Bullshit. You highlighted the parts that needed changing. You told me to take my time finding a lawyer."
"You were my friend, Soph. I had to play two sides—just like you did."
"Or maybe you didn't want me to sign it because then your fucked-up scheme would be over before it properly started," I said bitterly. "And where's the fun in that?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Then that would make two of us, right?"
"So after that first article, did you suspect me the whole time, just waiting until I messed up?"
Sighing again, he scratched the back of his neck, finally releasing his stare on me to shift his gaze across the room.
"Not the whole time, no. The rooftop bar. You thought I wasn't enjoying myself, but it's because I was conflicted. I'd spent so long suspecting you, and then you did something as thoughtful as that. I thought it meant you were falling for me, and I felt guilty for not fully trusting you."
"Until now?"
"Well, actually, then you snuck out of my room after sex, then we had a big argument over Becca, and then the Amsterdam article went live. So that put the doubt back in my head."
Fuck. I'd worried he was too smart not to become suspicious after that argument. Distracting him with blow jobs and sex was just that—a distraction. But I'd never guessed that his doubts had started long before the argument, that our entire friendship had been founded on suspicion.
"But even after that..." He swallowed, a glimpse of vulnerability shining through the hard mask he wore. "I didn't want to doubt you. Our friendship felt so real. So natural. I'd never had a friend like that before, so I hated to think it could all be a lie."
Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to believe that, given everything he'd just told me, but I'd felt the same way at several points throughout the trip, so I couldn't dismiss him as a liar when I'd experienced equally conflicting emotions myself.
"I'm sorry, Ed. It won't make it any better and it's not an excuse, but I really wasn't keen on the idea. The money was too good to turn down, and I felt like I owed Becca. Celebrities are always put on a pedestal, and I hated the thought of you using your fame to take advantage of adoring girls. I know I later found out Becca's version of events was an exaggeration, but that's why I did it originally."
"I thought as much."
"I could have gone much worse with the articles," I said. "You trusted me with a lot of stuff that I never would have shared. Unless that was all fake, too..."
He shook his head, pressing his lips together. "No. That was real. The side of me you saw in Europe, that was real. Our friendship—regardless of how or why it started—was real for me. And I never would have slept with you if that hadn't been real for me, too. This side you're seeing now, this is me hurt and angry. And yet knowing I'm a total hypocrite for feeling that way."
"Likewise. And this article..." I gestured towards the laptop again. "I hope it doesn't do any damage. I can write another one, setting the record straight—"
"The article's fake."
"Yeah, I know. But some people might believe it if they don't know better."
"No, I mean it's literally a fake article. It's not being released."
Reaching forwards, he clicked into his emails, and Sammie's name sat right at the top of his inbox.
Morning,
Please see attached. Received last night.
Kind regards,
Samantha
What the actual fuck? Just when I thought I'd got my head around it, he added another layer to his intricate web of duplicity.
"I don't understand... How do you know Sammie?"
"I don't, but her name was associated with both the club article and the Amsterdam one. Naturally she refused to reveal her sources when we confronted her, so we had to prove her source was unreliable. We sent her the staged photo and asked her to create a fake story that would find its way into her source's hands. We then said that if the source is who we think it is, she'll come back with another article. And if she did, we'd pay Sammie a six-figure sum not to release it."
For fuck's sake. He'd outplayed me on every level. He'd thought of everything. Covered every base. Granted he had a team around him that had no doubt contributed to this, but my earlier sympathy still gave way to fury at how far he'd taken it based on nothing but a suspicion—regardless of the fact that his suspicion turned out to be true.
"Fuck you, Ed. Seriously, fuck you."
He held up his hands in surrender, but his eyes danced. "Don't be pissed off that I caught you out. I am no worse than you."
"You're a lot sneakier than me," I said. "I never would have gone to such extreme lengths. Deliberately trying to provoke me with that photo so I'd play my hand? Planning it this meticulously, to the extent that you wore the same clothes so I'd believe the photo was real? Fake articles? Offering a six-figure sum to give me up?"
Eyes losing their sparkle, he leaned forwards, stopping when his face was only inches from mine. The heat from his breath tickled my lips, my stomach tying itself into a knot.
"Once again proving that you still don't understand how my world works. I had no choice but to go to extreme lengths. My life is on display for the world to see, so I'm sorry that I want to protect that to some extent. I'm sorry that I was right not to trust you."
Scoffing, I rose from the sofa and wandered over to the window, desperate to put space between us. In the reflection of the glass, I watched him close the laptop lid and sink back into the cushions, running a weary hand over his face.
At the beginning of this thing, I'd told myself I had no right to be frustrated by Becca's requests because I'd done far worse to her in the past. But that wasn't right. Relationships weren't built on tit for tat. Just because I'd done wrong in the past didn't give her a free pass to do what she did.
And just because I'd been dishonest with Teddy did not mean I had no right to be upset that he'd also been dishonest with me.
I turned back to face him. His eyes landed on me, cool and guarded. As we stared at one another, I knew we'd struggle to return to the friendship we'd shared in Europe. He'd never trust me again, and I would always be on edge, wondering if he was playing yet another game to determine my loyalty.
"Do you think we'll ever be able to forgive each other?" I asked him.
He took a long time replying, either to keep me in suspense or because he didn't know the answer.
Eventually, he shrugged. "Maybe. But we'll be long out of each other's lives by that point."
The cold words stung. We'd both done wrong, and perhaps I hoped we'd cancel out. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. But at some point in the future. If what we'd had was real, in spite of the deception, why would we throw that away?
I didn't say that, though. My dignity was already in tatters. Instead, I nodded.
Then I collected my bag, tossed my key cards for his suite onto the coffee table, and left without another word.
***
Thank you for reading :) xx
***
This was one of the very first scenes I came up with during planning for this story. Because of that, I have read and re-written it so many times that it's lost its impact on me -- but I hope it was enjoyable for first-time readers! I would love to hear your thoughts <3