Page 60 of Provocation
She breaks off, looking ashamed.
I can’t bear that expression on her face, but I say nothing, and when Blake opens his mouth, I shake my head a little at him, wanting to hear everything from her uninterrupted while she’s feeling like sharing.
‘He pushed me down on the desk. I didn’t even realize what was happening until it was, and then he was pulling at my underwear and his fingers were…’ She clenches her eyes shut and my hands ball into fists.
‘I didn’t ask him to. I didn’t like it. I pushed him away, and I slapped him, and then I ran for the door. It was locked and?—’
‘Who locked it, Daisy?’ Shade asks from the door.
‘He did,’ she whispers, not missing a beat, still not looking at us. ‘But I didn’t know he had.’
‘And the blinds? They’re closed in the picture. He did that, too?’
She nods. ‘He said there was a glare.’
‘Jesus,’ Blake snarls.
‘Calm down,’ I murmur in his general direction.
‘Calm down?’ he snarls. ‘He’s a dead man walking!’
Daisy looks torn. ‘It was my fau—’ she begins, but Blake puts a finger to her lips.
‘It wasnotyour fault.’
‘But it keeps happening,’ she argues. ‘It must be me. I must be doing something that makes them think… I might not realize. He said that I was a tease, and everyone knows I’m fucking Applegate. He told me I stole his lab spot and that I must sleepwith all the guys in KIP because I live here. If he believes all that, then I can see why he’d?—’
‘Assault a girl who wasn’t interested?’ Blake snarls.
She draws back from us, looking uncertain.
‘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.
