• [ s i n n e r s b e c o m e s a i n t s ] •

♥ louisa ♥

GABRIEL TRAILED BEHIND me as we quickly exited the club. As soon as we stepped onto the side street, the winds whipped around my bare arms and a shiver crept up my backless dress. It was moderately warm yet the midnight breeze still packed a punch.

He automatically took off his jacket and went to hand it to me yet I quickly put my hand out in a stop gesture.

"Save it."

Gabriel looked as if he were about to insist but silently put it back on after seeing the finality in the look I gave him.

I was still fuming at what he'd done and however much I hated to admit it, it was mostly because I wasn't sure how much of it all had been an act to make Logan jealous.

Don't be daft, Louisa. You know what he's like. You were an idiot for letting down your guard for a while.

Beneath my white dress, I felt my body tense in anger at myself for getting too caught up in the tornado swirling in his pretty eyes. That damn distinctive cologne that smelt of the stormy sea, musk and him. Just him. Only him.

Tapping my long nails against my thigh as I walked, I tried to think about the present moment and control my emotions.

"I'd seen Lexi taking to some guys at the corner of the street earlier. She should still be there. Logan was with me when we saw her so he's probably come here too."

"Why are we going to Lexi again?" Gabriel asked tiredly.

If I hadn't been so angry, I'd have felt sympathetic at the fact that everything must be so confusing from his perspective. Yet the bitchy part of me didn't care so chose not to answer.

Earlier on after I had left Talisa with Gabriel, Logan had compelled me to go on a stroll with him where I learned something very surprising about Lexi Walton.

Or should you say the girl who's decided to keep a baby that is better off not being born? Our environment's too tainted for something as pure as a child. It would only end up getting destroyed, its goodness lost in the wind.

When Logan had told me that Lexi had decided to not abort her pregnancy as she usually did, I was surprised but not concerned. Her decision quite frankly didn't have anything to do with me. It was her and only her choice. I hated her and always would for sleeping with my father, unknowingly or not. Nothing would change that.

Nevertheless, Logan was evidently more interested in her decision. Since Talisa's party when Lexi got too drunk and exposed Logan's deal with her, he'd been waiting for the perfect opportunity to make her pay.

I was pretty certain this was it.

"I never told you to come with me. You can gladly go back to chugging that half filled bottle of rose if you want," I snapped more harshly than I intended.

That's ironic coming from someone who's part of the reason why he drinks so much.

Gabriel held his hands up in surrender, zipped his lips shut and supposedly flicked away the key. Rolling my eyes, I noticed how the group of men Lexi had been flirting with earlier had vanished and been replaced by Logan.

"Ah, there's the prick," Gabriel sang, immediately forgetting about his supposed vow of silence. I swiftly pulled him back when he began walking towards them. "Wait, what? I thought we came here to talk to them."

I knew better than to get in Logan's way when he was this irritated. He was pissed off at me and there was a good chance he wasn't thinking straight. The fact that Logan hadn't said anything when he'd seen Gabriel and I in the club made it even worse.

It suggested he was planning something bigger.

"No, we're hear to listen."

His eyebrows furrowed for a split second before a slow grin grew on his attractive face. "What happened to calling me an evesdropper? I think you might be a hypocrite, Lou."

He was right but I didn't give him the satisfaction of knowing that. We got as close to Logan and Lexi as possible, shielding ourself with the bus stop.

"What is this about, Logan?" Lexi bravely asked him. Her middle parting had been dead straight a couple hours ago. It was now a complete mess, made untidy from the numerous men's hands that had ran their fingers through it.

The street light twitched on again, falling upon Logan and giving him an angelic glow as if he had just descended from heaven. Light brown hair. Smooth skin. Round lips.

It was as if he'd been born of a feather from an angel's wing. "You know what this is about, Lexi. Trust me, I wouldn't give two shits about somebody as irrelevant as you if you hadn't screwed me over like that."

Her eyes widened slightly when he insulted her, surprised at the tone of Logan's voice and the fact he thought she was irrelevant. Lexi had thought that she'd comfortably weaved her way into our circle by now. What she stupidly didn't get was that she'd never be one of us. They'd been plenty of girls and boys over the years who had tried to climb the ranks like Lexi.

All of them had fallen.

Logan must have noticed for he snickered. "What? You thought you were one of us now? Lexi, please. There's been lots of students like you who thought they could be one of us. And it never happened." His eyes bored into her, "Frankly, you're a nobody and forgettable."

Beside me, Gabriel whistled lowly under his breath. "Well, that was harsh."

It was harsh but true. That was the truth around here and if she hadn't accepted that yet, Lexi had set herself up to fail. Her own desire to reach the top had blinded her from the fact it wasn't all roses up here.

I watched as she crossed her arms over her ample chest, the loose dress covering her figure. She probably had a bump beneath that.

"Actually, you're not a nobody. That would be wrong of me to say." He jeered on in his bratty voice. "People do know who you are after all. You're the Forteaux slut and that's all you'll ever be. A slut who wanted to make a name for herself, accidentally got pregnant and is now going to be a mother in a couple months."

Lexi looked utterly stunned at what Logan was saying. This wasn't the King of Forteaux that she thought she knew. "Who was it this time? Jason? Justin Thomas? You don't have a single clue."

I couldn't see the two of them very clearly but managed to catch a glimpse of her big blue eyes. Behind me I felt Gabriel breathe out. "I don't understand why you want to marry someone like this Louisa."

"He's not that bad." I muttered, wincing at how weak of an excuse I was about to give. "He's just hurt that Lexi embarrassed him that day." Gabriel scoffed lightly; his structured face had sobered up from earlier.

"Yeah sure," he said sarcastically. I glared at him and told him to be quiet so I could hear.

"This is about Talisa's party, isn't it?" Lexi asked Logan, specks of fear evident in her voice. My hands tensed into fists as I wondered what Logan was going to do to Lexi.

It wouldn't be physical. Unlike with me, he didn't have anything on Lexi to stop her from reporting it to the police. If he laid a single finger on her, the rest of Forteaux would find out about his anger issues.

So the question was what was he going to do?

"Logan, I was drunk. I would never have spilled the beans about our deal if I was sober. I benefited from it. I wouldn't screw myself over like that," Lexi explained in her high pitched voice. "It had been a crazy night and I didn't know what I was doing."

Logan's eyes pierced into her. "Well that's something you're not going to be doing for a while. Drinking. Not while you're pregnant anyway. You've learned your lesson about that." Lexi's eyes fell downwards in shame.

I noticed Gabriel stiffen besides me for some reason in surprise before he shook his head. "How does he even know she's pregnant?"
My gaze momentarily drifted from Logan and Lexi onto Gabriel. "You knew?" I asked quietly. He nodded but didn't elaborate upon it.

Like the pulling of an elastic band, a mocking smile grew on Logan's mouth. "But you did, didn't you?" My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I tried to guess what he was talking about.

Lexi stood up taller, her voice shaky. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"How about I tell you?" Logan taunted talking a step away from her to peer at the shutters of an antiques shop.

"When you found out you were pregnant for the eighth time- or was it the ninth?" Lexi didn't respond causing him to shrug his shoulders. "When you found out you were pregnant again, you made the brave decision to not abort and instead become a mother. You were tired of having numerous terminations."

I pressed my hand against the glass and listened carefully.

"But when you told your parents that you wanted to keep the child, they weren't at all happy. They loved you but couldn't stand your decision. You got into a huge argument and rather recklessly decided to drink four times the legal limit at Talisa's party. That's not to mention the drugs."

My jaw slackened slightly as I wondered how I hadn't noticed any of this was going on.

"It's no surprise that when you went for your scan, you found out there were many complications. They said the foetus would have numerous disabilities including FAS if it managed to survive. However somehow it did."

Logan gave Lexi a pearly smile that was painfully incongruent with what he was saying. "Guilt drowned you as you thought about what you had done in the spur in a moment. You'd actually got quite attached to your little bump."

Lexi's hand instinctively lowered to her stomach as Logan continued. It was ridiculous how I almost felt sympathy for somebody I despised.

I guess in some situations even sinners become saints.

"Your parents said they would disown you if you didn't get rid of the child. So what did you do?" Logan asked rhetorically before laughing. "You phoned them and said that you had got rid of the baby. Of course, we both know that isn't true."

I was transfixed to the spot in shock at what I was hearing. The more I listened, the more sure I felt on what Logan was going to do. Lexi looked up at him in confusion and fear. "H-How do you know all of this?"

With money, time and dedication, you could find anything.

"What were you planning on doing? Avoiding them for the next five or six months?" Logan smirked as if relishing the terror in Lexi's eyes.

She didn't answer causing him to laugh in disbelief. "That was your plan, Lexi? A pretty rubbish one to be honest. But they do say desperation causes people to do stupid things."

All of a sudden, a ringing sound made my heart drop.

My breath caught.

Besides me, Gabriel fumbled with his phone before quickly putting it on mute. Thankfully, neither Lexi or Logan noticed. His eyes locked on mine as he gave me an apologetic look before his head dropped down to his phone.

I glimpsed at the caller ID and saw it said Nanna. The name was familiar. It was the woman he told me about; his grandmother who had taken him in after his parents threw him out. Concern flooded his face as he debated on whether or not to answer the phone.

Nudging him, I told him to take the call. "Go. There's no point coming back. I'll fill you in later when we get back to the yacht." He nodded appreciatively, readily trusting me and accepting my lie.

Gabriel was already suspicious about mine and Logan's relationship and if he watched what Logan was about to do to Lexi, he'd be on my tail. I'd tell him an edited account later that made Logan seem less dangerous.

"Thanks Lou," he said, his lips lifting up into a smile as his hand brushed against mine. Turning on his heel, he casted a long intense look at Lexi before swanking off into the night.

The sound of Lexi's stressed cry brought my attention back to them. Logan had handed her a large brown envelope which she had just opened. I couldn't see what it was but judging by Lexi's reaction is was bad. "W-What is all this?"

Lexi hasn't realised it yet but I knew exactly where this was going. My eyes squeezed shut in out as I exhaled sharply. When I opened them again, I saw Logan looming over Lexi menacingly.

Logan sneered at her, his lip curling in distaste. "A series of recent photographs, hospital scans and letters showing that Lexi Walton has definitely not had a termination."

Water lapped at her eyes as she tears flooded her face. "Please don't show them this. Logan, you don't know how conservative they are. They'll come down here themself and make me abort even though I've biologically passed that stage. I-I beg you, Logan. Don't do it."

Logan laughed sourly as he hugrily watched Lexi fall apart. "Ah. Well that's a shame, isn't it? Because a copy of this happens to be lying on your fathers desk right now."

Unable to bear watching the scene before me any longer, I turned away slightly. My breath had become ragged and uneven as I felt the pain of somebody I hated. The sound of Lexi's raw and agonised voice followed.

"What? On his desk right now? No. Please. I'm sorry for that day. I'll never do it again," she beseeched in vain. "Just don't do this. This isn't like you."

Logan voice swam with satisfaction as he made her repent for his humiliation. "You don't know me, Lexi. You don't know any of us. You just wish you did."

It was true.

Nobody apart myself knew Logan's true colours up until now. Three years ago - before I found out about his agreement with Ashlei - I had hopelessly adored him. Seeing them screwing around in his bedroom an hour after he said he loved me completely broke my heart.

I never confronted the two of them over the friends with benefits situation because I wanted to see if either of them had the decency to tell me themself.

They didn't.

In that moment, I could have broken up with the Logan but I decided to not bring up what I'd seen. The publicity and awe surrounding Forteaux's golden couple was too grand to be thrown away. It provided the basic of a lifetime full of opportunity.

Just because my boyfriend had turned out to be an asshole didn't mean I wasn't going to muck up my own life for it. I wasn't going to let that bring me down.

Instead I spent the next two years attending numerous parties, meeting handsome strangers and having fun. If Logan could go around fucking people behind my back, so could I.

But all that had came to a horrible end after that night with Gabriel.

When I isolated myself, traumatised about what had happened, Logan was the only person who noticed. Every evening, he would try and phone me to find out what was wrong. To find out what was bothering me.

Nobody else even realised.

Prince, Arlo, Talisa-

None of them.

Eventually, I gave in and opened up to him. Sure, Logan was a cheater but I didn't think he was wicked. Besides he was the only person who knew me well enough to notice that something was up. That said a lot.

I was in a fragile state of mind and Logan knew exactly what to say to make me forget about how much of a liar he was. Utterly vulnerable, I allowed myself to be manipulated and sobbed my heart to him. Of course, that didn't end well.

It turned out Logan had always been aware of the fact I knew about his activities with Ashlei.

The pink lipstick stain on his sheets.
The blonde strands of hair.
The necklace with an A that I found under his pillow.
He used to deliberately plant them in my face for the fun of it all.

It didn't matter though. It was my own fault to provide him with blackmail information and I still paid the price for that today.

A little monologue at the end to give some insight as to why Louisa told Logan about 'that night' despite knowing about his relationship with Ashlei.

Has this chapter changed your opinions of Lexi or do you still hate her for sleeping with Lou's father? Or do you like and dislike her at the same time a bit like me?

Thanks for getting TPOG to #1 ranking on richkids. I appreciate it so much. Check my notification board for a little message (:

KiwiAndKoalas x

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