Page 153 of My Dark Prince

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I killed the call and shot him a text to get back to me. Then, I propped my head against the backrest and scrolled through Ollie’s Instagram. The sight of his face always soothed me. We didn’t post pictures together online. I was extremely private, and Ollie was … well, not.

I noticed a new picture I hadn’t seen before, of him and Seb at a steakhouse, clinking iced tea glasses and grinning at the camera. I immediately liked it and began to scroll further when I noticed a comment from someone I didn’t recognize.

LindseyBorneXO:LOOKING HOT OLLIE.

My heart skipped a beat. I ran the pad of my finger down the screen and found another comment from her on a picture of Oliver, alone, sunbathing by the lake.

Nana Sahib, Kanpur, and the Controversial Massacre That Shocked Britain

The Siege of Delhi (1857): The Most Important Battle of the Uprising

Bahadur Shah Zafar and the Revival of the Mughal Empire During the Rebellion of 1857

The Meerut Mutiny and the Capture of Delhi: How the Rebellion Began

LindseyBorneXO:When are you inviting me to the lake house??? DM’d you something naughty …

Swallowing hard, I clicked on her profile and gasped.

He liked her bikini pic.

It felt like passing a car crash. Sirens, and scraps of metal, and blood, and I couldn’t look away.

Don’t freak out. It’s Oliver. Maybe it was an accident.

Nope. He liked all her half-naked Cancun Spring Break pictures. All thirty of them in a row. And the comments.The comments.They burned right into my retinas. I could never unsee them.

OlivervonBismarck:JFC you are hottttttttt

OlivervonBismarck:Beer, bikini, and BBQ? Say less.

OlivervonBismarck:So, when are you coming over so I can show you a good time?

I’d never had doubts when it came to Ollie’s faithfulness … until now.

My cheeks flamed. The tips of my ears burned. I called him again. No answer. Then again. And again. I told myself there was a perfectly good explanation for this – the comments, the flirting, the lack of communication – and forced myself to hide my phone and go for a walk.

But when I returned, he still didn’t answer.

So, I lost it.

I wasn’t proud of my next move. I was usually a poised, well-behaved girl. Not right now. I wrote him a chain of scathing text messages.

Briar Rose:You aren’t answering, and I’m not sure why, but honestly, your behavior is uncalled for.

Attila the Hun: The Scourge of God and Rome’s Greatest Threat

The Power Struggles After Stilicho’s Execution: Rome’s Descent into Chaos

Stilicho: The Last Great General of Western Rome and Defender of a Dying Empire

The Sack of Rome (410 AD) by Alaric: Shockwaves Across the Empire

Briar Rose:You are publicly flirting with another girl, while I’m sitting here planning our entire future together. What the hell, Oliver?

Briar Rose:Call me back.

Briar Rose:HELLO?

Briar Rose:You better be dead, because any other excuse is going to fall short.

But Oliver wasn’t dead.

I found out four days later when he posted a picture on his Instagram, of him and Sebastian grinning from ear to ear with the caption:Little bro moving to India. Alavida, motherfucker!

Ollie hadn’t returned any of my calls and texts. Yet, he found time to post this.

I studied every pixel in the picture. He seemed happy. Carefree. Tanned and smiling ear-to-ear. How could he disappear on me and go on with his life?

The rest of the summer deteriorated at an alarming pace. My deadline to pay the Harvard tuition came and went. I tried to secure a private student loan, but I lacked a credit history, and my parents refused to cosign.

Harvard was officially off the table.