Page 24 of Provocation (Den of Deception #3)

‘Even if that’s true,’ I say, attempting to be calm, ‘that says more about him and the rest of the entitled assholes who go here than it does about you, Tulip.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, looking down again.

She still thinks this was her fault, I realize, at a loss. I don’t know how to explain this so that she understands that this was all Bennet.

I glance helplessly at Blake who’s looking as devastated as I feel.

‘Tulip?’

She looks up at me.

‘When was he here? In your room, I mean?’

‘Last Wednesday.’

I lock eyes with Blake, and he nods.

‘I’m going to go wash my face,’ Daisy murmurs, not looking at us as she slinks from the room like she’s the worst person ever.

‘He planned it,’ I say as soon as I hear the bathroom door close.

‘Yeah, he did,’ Blake mutters. ‘And we need to show her.’

He brings up her camera, black now because the tape is still on it, and goes back to the day in question.

My eyes narrowing when I see her enter the frame followed by Bennet. Blake angles the screen so we can all see it. Shade appears next to me.

They’re off-camera at her desk, clearly working.

Bennet is chatting a lot and Daisy is quiet.

She sounds friendly when she does add anything to the conversation, but that’s all I hear.

General politeness. In fact, when they’re finished and move into the camera’s view, they talk for a minute.

She looks toward the door more than once, like she wants him to leave.

He stands too close to her and every time he brushes against her, it’s clearly on purpose.

Each time, she moves further away from him and he follows.

She doesn’t even look like she realizes he’s doing it intentionally.

‘Looks to me like they have about as much chemistry as potassium and water,’ I murmur, my eyes fixed to the screen, watching how Daisy creates distance every time his arm touches her.

And he touches her a lot.

I wait for the something , watching for the moment where she clearly gives him the wrong idea.

But it doesn’t come. She just smiles awkwardly and moves closer to the door.

And when she turns away, his eyes turn predatory and move down to her ass and he licks his lips.

His hands even move as if to grab her, but then he looks at the camera lens.

He must see the glint of it as he passes it.

Fear passes over his face, and he moves back, getting himself under control.

I close my eyes, imagining all the painful ways I’m going to end him.

‘That sonofabitch,’ Blake snarls.

‘I hate that she thinks this was her fault,’ I mutter, wrenching my hands through my hair.

‘She didn’t do anything to make him think she was interested.

The shit he said to her… We don’t need to see anymore.

Whatever he thinks, it’s all in his mind.

He told her she’d been flirting with him, that she made him think she wanted it. She didn’t.’

Shade swears under his breath.

‘She thought the same thing after Halloween,’ Shade points out. ‘She always thinks she did something to give the wrong impression. Have you noticed that? She believes it’s her fault when she’s treated like shit. It’s where she goes first. Every time.’

‘What are we going to do about him?’

‘I’ll make him pay,’ Blake snarls.

I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘ We’ll make that weak little fuck pay.’

‘I need to go to the lab,’ Daisy says in a quiet voice.

We all turn around to look at her standing in the doorway. Her arms are curled around her middle and she’s not looking at us.

‘We want you to look at something first,’ Shade says, holding out his hand.

She comes into the room slowly, like she’s going to a funeral. She doesn’t take Shade’s hand and when she stands next to him, she doesn’t touch him.

‘I cleaned up your room,’ he says.

She looks stricken. ‘You went in? You saw it?’

Her lip trembles. ‘I’m sorry. I was upset and angry and so— Please don’t tell your dad! He’ll send me back. He’ll tell the Bandervilles. He’ll?—’

Shade steps close to her and pulls her into a hug. ‘I cleaned it up, Daisy,’ he whispers. ‘No one will know. Even the mirror has already been replaced. It’s like it never happened.’

She lets out a shuddering breath. ‘But it proves I’m not…cured,’ she whispers brokenly.

‘Maybe you don’t need to be cured,’ Shade says to her, cupping her chin so that she looks at him. ‘Maybe you’re perfect the way you are.’

She scoffs loudly but doesn’t argue.

‘You need to see something.’

Shade puts his arm around her shoulders and draws her closer to Blake’s desk. ‘Watch.’

Blake starts the video at the point that Daisy and Bennet enter the room.

We watch the entire thing together with us pointing out all the times Bennet touches her and she doesn’t like it, all the times she looks annoyed. She watches with a frown and, at the end she gasps when she sees him look at the camera.

‘He didn’t look like my friend at all just then,’ she murmurs. ‘He looked like he wanted to…’ Her eyes widen. ‘I really didn’t do anything, did I?’

I shake my head and see the others doing the same.

‘I can see it so clearly in the video.’ She sighs wistfully. ‘I wish I could see real life in playback like that all the time.’

‘Oh, Tulip,’ I whisper. ‘I’ll spend days explaining every single little nuance you don’t quite understand a thousand times over if you need me to. I’ll do that and more if it means you never believe that someone putting their unwelcome hands on you is your fault ever again.’

She looks up at me.

‘Thank you,’ she whispers.

Then her eyes find the screen again. ‘That asshole,’ she mutters with a lot more grit.

She looks at all of us in turn. ‘I don’t want any of you doing anything to him.’

‘But, gorgeous,’ Blake protests, almost in a whine, ‘he deserves to pay for what he did.’

She stares at the frozen image of Bennet looking at her camera.

‘I know,’ she says. ‘But he’s mine.’

‘Okay,’ I mutter, and I hear the same from Shade.

She turns and leaves the room without another word, and we all look at each other.

‘Well, that was hot as fuck,’ Blake whispers, staring after her.

I do the same, silently agreeing.

‘Fuck Bennet. There’s no way he misunderstood anything. This shit is never her fault. She sucks at flirting. We need to make sure she knows it.’

Shade huffs a quiet laugh. ‘Maybe don’t tell her she sucks at flirting.’

‘That’s not what I mean,’ I frown, and Shade rolls his eyes.

‘I know what you mean,’ he says. ‘If we have to remind her every single day, we will.’

‘Good,’ Blake mutters. ‘I never want to see her like that again. She was so upset.’

I nod. I don’t either, but I know it’s inevitable. It’s how she deals when things get to be too much. We just need to be here for her when they do.

‘You don’t think that we’ve ever done stuff she hasn’t wanted because we didn’t read the signs, right?’ I ask, giving voice to the fear that’s gripping my heart.

‘Not the same,’ Blake says, not even looking at me. ‘She doesn’t freeze when we touch her.’ He holds up the picture we were sent. ‘Look at her face. Closely. She doesn’t look like that after our fingers have been buried in her pussy.’

We all frown at the reminder of what Bennet did to her, that he planned it and we can’t punish him. But I’ll leave him for her if that’s what she wants, if that will make her feel better.

‘Who sent the photo we got?’ I ask.

‘One of those sorority bitches.’

I sigh. ‘I’m just about done with their Mean Girl bullshit. If we can’t do anything to Bennet, I say we do something to them.’

Blake’s smile is dark. ‘They’ve certainly had enough warnings. The usual route?’

Shade nods. ‘Family financial ruin sprinkled with a dash of shattered futures. Only the ones who are tight with Laurie and Jolie, though. Not all of them are culpable.’

‘On it.’

Daisy appears back in the room. ‘Can we go to the lab now,’ she asks me.

‘Are you sure you’re up for that?’ I reply, surveying her expression and her body language for signs that she’s still upset.

‘Yeah. I have a list of things to do today. I’ll feel worse later if I don’t get everything done.’ She shrugs. ‘I feel a little better than I did earlier. Tired, but not so wound up, you know?’

‘Yeah, I get it. Let’s see the list.’

She takes it out of her pocket, and I scan it quickly. ‘Well, we can talk about Envy on the walk over to the Novelle Centre, and we can write this paper together tonight at Wrath while we’re making Batch Two. There. Mostly done.’

She gives me a little smile. ‘Thanks.’

I grab my coat for her to wear, and when we leave the house, I take her hand as we walk.

It’s only when we get to the lab that I realize that Blake never promised not to deal with Bennet.

I can’t help my small grin, knowing that my friend will leave enough left of him for Daisy, but he will be taking his own revenge on her behalf.

I can’t wait to see what he does to the asshole. Subtle, Blake is not. I think maybe I’ll walk Daisy to that class tomorrow so I can have a front row seat.