Taming the Tribunal
Their mission was to expose me. To bait me into cheating on a fictitious boyfriend, then tear away my mask of innocence.
“She’s not my sister,” I heard him ranting to them over the phone. “Don’t let the innocent act fool you. She’s been around the block more times than you can count.”
“A girl like that is cheap,” one of his friends chimed in. “No class. You could whisper a few sweet nothings and she’d roll over like a puppy.”
A slow smile spread across my lips. I scheduled a meeting with the one who sounded the most pliable, the youngest of the princelings.
“Do you think they’re too big?” I asked, my voice a soft murmur.
The handsome boy stared at me, his face flushing a deep crimson. “No. They’re… great.”
I moved behind him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, my voice laced with a practiced melancholy.
“I’ve been self-conscious my whole life because of my body,” I whispered. “People can be so cruel. But you’re not like them, are you? You’ll protect me, won’t you?”
He stammered, his voice cracking. “Yeah. I will.”
Virgins. So wonderfully easy to mold.
Later, his back ramrod straight, he announced to his friends that he was going to be my fiancé.
The Tribunal imploded.
“Carter! What the hell is wrong with you? Betraying us like that?”
“I was supposed to be the one to seduce her! What are you doing proposing?”
1
I was born beautiful. That, combined with good grades, meant I’d been the center of attention since kindergarten.
But my mother always had one piece of advice for me: “You need to smile less.”
I’d ask her why.
“An easy smile,” she’d say, “is an open invitation for cheap men.”
If my gorgeous mother so much as accidentally smiled at a man, they’d swarm her like flies.
I was the opposite of my mother. I always had a smile on my face.
And anyone who ever crossed me would find themselves facing my retribution, delivered from the shadows, with a smile.
Then, my mother found my long-lost biological father—a bona fide tycoon—and we moved into his world.
That world included a stepbrother I could have done without, Liam.
The moment we met, we both knew we were destined to be enemies.
He mouthed two words at me from across the grand foyer: “You’re fake.” Then, with a smirk, “Watch me fix you.”
I just smiled back, all innocence.
2
That night, Liam burst into my room. He was holding a dead mouse by the tail, which he flung onto my bed with a triumphant grin.
He wanted to see me scream. To see me panic.
My reflexes were faster. In one fluid motion, I snatched the dead rodent and shoved it down the front of his designer jeans.
Then, clad in my silk robe, my feet bare, I ran screaming into my parents’ bedroom.
I pitched my voice high, forcing tears. “Liam was spying on me in the shower!”
In a family of this stature, even the hint of incestuous scandal is poison.
My father, seeing my tear-streaked face, turned a shade of purple. He grabbed the nearest heavy object—a golf club from the corner—and laid into Liam’s backside.
“If you ever pull a stunt like this with your sister again, you’re out of this house!”
Later, after our parents had left, Liam stood there, his rear end probably swollen to twice its size.
He glared at me, his voice a low hiss. “You just wait.”
He immediately got on the phone with his friends to vent.
“The mistress’s daughter can’t be anything but trash. I’m going to get them both kicked out of this house!”
“Don’t let the innocent act fool you. She’s probably slept with half the city!”
“She’s in art school—that’s like, a hundred grand a year. Where do you think she got that money?”
As Liam spoke, his voice echoed from two places: his room down the hall, and the speaker of my own phone.
On my first day in this house, I’d installed a listening app on his phone.
Every secret they plotted, every move they planned, was laid bare before me.
A text from one of them popped up. [Rhys: I get it. The purer they look on the outside, the dirtier they are underneath.]
Rhys was the group’s resident playboy. Handsome, ridiculously wealthy, and a constant feature in gossip columns. He was a staunch bachelor, a silver ring permanently fixed on his left pinky finger as a symbol of his commitment to being non-committal.
At his suggestion, the boys officially formed “The Tribunal” and drafted a battle plan.
Rhys was the chief strategist.
His persona for this operation: the reformed rake, a wild man ready to be tamed by one special woman—me. It was a role he’d used to devastating effect on countless women before. He was confident his plan was foolproof.
Meanwhile, Rhys’s best friend, Ethan, was cast as the sweet, younger guy who falls for me at first sight.
His job was to make a move while Rhys was supposedly winning my heart.
The moment I took Ethan’s bait, my stepbrother Liam would lead a charge to catch us in the act.
Then, Ethan would turn on me, accusing me of playing them both, and produce photographic evidence that would utterly destroy my reputation.
They saw themselves as arbiters of justice.
They had sworn an oath to help Liam drive the conniving mother-daughter duo out of their home for good.
3
Rhys spent a month wooing me online, meticulously mapping my likes and dislikes.
In our chats, he’d casually drop hints about his family’s immense fortune. He got my address and a parade of luxury goods began arriving at my door.
A sweet-talking, wealthy playboy, offering himself up on a silver platter? Of course, I wasn’t going to say no.
[Rhys: She’s so clueless. I sent her a bag from last season and she acted like it was Christmas.]
Liam, playing the diligent wingman, brought me to a party at Rhys’s villa.
The air was thick with smug anticipation. A coterie of insiders watched me, their eyes glinting with schadenfreude, waiting for the trap to spring.
This was a hunt, and I was the prey.
A host in a clown mask stood in the center of the grand hall.
Suddenly, the villa plunged into darkness.
“Power outage?”
I feigned panic, reaching out and grabbing a hand I assumed was Liam’s.
But I knew instantly it wasn’t. My fingers brushed against something hard and cool. A man’s ring. Liam never wore rings.
A sophisticated, woodsy cologne filled the air around me—it smelled expensive.
At the same time, the clown’s voice echoed through the darkness:
“The loser of our last party game must kiss a member of the opposite sex for one full minute.”
Whispers erupted around me. “Wasn’t Rhys the one who lost? I thought he had a rule about not kissing women.”
I felt the person next to me lean closer, and a small smile touched my lips.
So many girlfriends, yet he pretends he doesn’t kiss anyone. Such a hypocrite.
There was nothing I despised more than someone who was a bigger phony than I was.
I kept up my act, feigning nervousness. I sensed him dipping his head toward me.
I tilted my chin up, meeting him halfway.
His lips were soft, wet.
The kiss was clumsy, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
I frowned internally. Why is he so green? Doesn’t he even know how to kiss?
But then, another hand, firm and practiced, wrapped around my waist.
Shit. I kissed the wrong one. This must be Rhys.
I bit down lightly on the stranger’s lower lip.
He let out a muffled grunt.
I heard Rhys curse under his breath, a sharp, “Fuck.”
Then, he yanked me forcefully into his arms.
The lights flickered back on.
4
Rhys’s face was a thundercloud. He stared at the glistening moisture on my lips, his cold eyes scanning the room.
His suspicious gaze finally landed on Ethan, who was staring intently at the floor.
I stood there, blinking, my face a perfect mask of pure, wide-eyed innocence.
“The new girlfriend is gorgeous, Rhys. You two look perfect together.”
“Damn, that must be true love. I’ve never seen Rhys kiss a girl so hard he bruised her lips.”
The crowd was playing its part, their voices dripping with cheerful praise.
Rhys, already seething, felt his face darken further at their words.
Because he knew perfectly well he wasn’t the one who had just kissed me.
But he quickly shifted gears, his expression melting into one of tender affection. He took my hand and led me to a plush sofa. He was determined to conquer me tonight, so no matter how furious he was, he had to swallow it.
There were two men in the room who stood out from the rest.
Rhys, seated to my right, and Ethan, across from me.
Both were easily over six feet tall.
The man who had kissed me in the dark was about that height.
Ethan’s role in the plan was to swoop in and seduce me after Rhys and I were “together,” during a manufactured rough patch.
As a co-conspirator, it was logical for Rhys to suspect him of jumping the gun.
Noticing Rhys’s glare, Ethan looked up, confused.
I, seated beside Rhys, offered Ethan a small, sweet smile.
He instinctively returned it with a brilliant, boyish grin.
A flash of fury crossed Rhys’s eyes. His grip on my hand tightened.
I scanned the room again. Besides those two, there was one other man who was just as tall.
His back was to us as he headed for the second-floor staircase.
Broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and legs that seemed to go on forever. His proportions were perfect.
A shame I couldn’t see his face.
Liam let out a cold laugh, leaning close to my ear. “Don’t even think about it. That’s Carter Monroe. He’s way out of your league.”
“If Rhys didn’t have a thing for you, I never would have brought you here. I have no idea what he sees in you, anyway.”
Liam was working hard, using reverse psychology to play his part as Rhys’s wingman.
The other actors in the room chimed in on cue. “We’ve never seen Rhys fall for a girl this hard.”
The mood lighting shifted, and the loud party music faded into a soft, romantic ballad.
Rhys took the silver ring from his pinky—his symbol of eternal bachelorhood—and pressed it into my palm. His gaze was intense, his eyes full of feigned adoration.
Another round of cheers and whistles erupted from the crowd.
The atmosphere was intoxicatingly romantic, far more effective than a straightforward confession of love. Any other girl would have been blushing, her heart pounding.
I simply sat there, a placid smile on my face, accepting every ounce of affection Rhys directed my way.
Believing he had already won, a flicker of boredom crossed Rhys’s face, his eyes turning cold and distant for a split second.
I watched his micro-expressions, then produced a perfectly timed blush.
I tugged on his sleeve and whispered, just loud enough for him to hear, “That was my first kiss.”
The triumphant look on Rhys’s face instantly curdled.
He shot a cold, mocking glare at Ethan, who was still preening like a peacock, flashing smiles in my direction.
I excused myself to the restroom.
My phone lit up.
[Rhys: @Liam, I thought you said your sister had a ton of boyfriends? She just told me that was her first kiss.]
[Liam: She’s faking it, obviously. Probably just like you, claiming you’re a virgin after a hundred girlfriends.]
[Rhys: Fuck you—I actually am!]
A moment later, Rhys’s last message was deleted.
After scrolling through their chat, I opened my own messages, finding a conversation from before I’d arrived at the villa.
A kind soul had sent me an anonymous warning.
[Unknown Number: Don’t go. It’s a setup.]
I’d replied with the ramblings of a girl hopelessly in love.
[Sienna: Rhys is so good to me. He really loves me. To be honest, I wasn’t that into him at first, but… that was my first kiss tonight. I think I’m falling for him. His kissing technique is a little clumsy, though. Hasn’t he ever watched a tutorial or something?]
As I stepped out of the restroom, a tall man in a black casual suit was standing there, a scowl on his handsome, aloof face as he stared at his phone.
Then he looked up at me.
I saw that his lower lip was split.
And I recognized that expensive, woodsy scent.
5
I take back what I said about Rhys and Ethan being the most handsome men in the room.
The man in front of me was beautiful.
He had sharp, phoenix-like eyes that held a natural coolness when his face was at rest. Right now, however, they were clouded with a mixture of shame and anger that softened their icy edge.
And, I noted, his ass was better than Liam’s.
Carter Monroe seemed to find my gaze overly bold. His lips pressed into a tight line.
I adjusted my own expression, summoning the wide-eyed, innocent smile I’d practiced in the mirror a thousand times.
“Your lip… it looks like you’re hurt.”
The coldness in his eyes intensified. He gave me a long, deep look, then strode away.
I watched him go, noticing he was walking stiffly, almost marching, and he stumbled slightly on the stairs.
Liam’s sharp eyes caught us emerging from the same hallway. He was already typing in their group chat.
[Liam: Whoa, did she just try to hit on Carter Monroe in the five minutes she was in the bathroom? He’s not interested in women. She can forget it.]
[Ethan: Rhys, you kissed her pretty hard. You better not get too attached before it’s my turn.]
[Rhys: Who cares about her? She’s just a gold digger. Do whatever you want, just make it quick. Don’t wait too long, or she’ll actually fall in love with me and you won’t even get a taste.]
[Ethan: That confident, huh?]
[Rhys: Fuck off! Go be the other man. And don’t forget to take pictures for proof.]
6
Rhys excused himself to take a call, a deliberate move to leave the stage clear for me and Ethan.
I went out to the balcony for some air.
Ethan, wearing a white shirt unbuttoned just enough to reveal his collarbones, radiated a vibrant, collegiate energy as he approached me.
“Sienna,” he said, his voice earnest. “Please don’t fall for Rhys. He’s had so many girlfriends. He’s not a good guy.”
Ethan, like Rhys, had a flexible relationship with morals and ethics. They would do anything to achieve their goals.
He leaned in close, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. “I don’t care if you like other guys, Sienna. If you’re with me, my house, my cars… they’re all yours.”
He produced a bracelet from his pocket.
I recognized it as a new piece from Cartier’s collection, worth well over a hundred thousand dollars. Except this one was a fake.
Before I could refuse, he had fastened it onto my wrist.
I have to admit, Ethan had a real talent for being the other man.
I thought it, so I said it.
Hearing the compliment, Ethan’s face froze.
I slipped the bracelet off. “If you want to land a sugar mama, your looks are a good start. But you don’t need to pretend you’re rich and pass off knockoffs.”
The realization that I thought he was the gold digger sent a wave of crimson across his face.
He snatched the rejected bracelet, his voice rising in indignation. “I spent a ton of money on this! How can it be a fake?”
Then, right before his eyes, he saw that the contact for the “private shopper” he’d used had blocked and deleted him.
He stared, stunned, for three seconds, then pointed an accusing finger at me.
“Even if I were looking for a sponsor, I wouldn’t choose you! I know you don’t have any real money. The family fortune is all going to Liam!”
I sat back in the wicker swing, leisurely watching his performance. When he mentioned the inheritance, a small smile played on my lips.
Ethan glared, defiant. “Am I wrong?”
I gently stroked his cheek. “Do you know why Liam has never been the favorite in our family? Because his mother was the other woman. She broke up my parents, which is why my mom took me and ran away.”
His eyes widened.
This was the complete opposite of the story they’d been told.
In their narrative, I was the daughter of the mistress.
I continued, my voice soft and fragile. “But Liam is innocent in all this, of course. So we never pursued it. My parents were the 'it' couple back in college. There are tons of photos. It’s easy enough to verify.”
“Love can’t have impurities. So many men have confessed their feelings for me, but they’re all so… phony. So boring. But Rhys… Rhys is different. He’s interesting.”
“But after meeting him tonight, I realize he’s not what I imagined. It feels like… he doesn’t love me as much as I thought.”
The sheer volume of new information left Ethan stunned and speechless.
I tapped the tip of his nose with my finger.
“Don’t look for shortcuts, little brother. You should focus on your studies.”
I slipped off my painfully high stilettos and ignored him, sitting alone on the swing.
Melancholy. Lonely.
It was another one of my favorite roles to play.
Ethan was young. Girls his age, full of life and energy, were a dime a dozen. To catch someone like him, I couldn’t just play the innocent little girl like I did for Rhys.
I had to add a little color, a little mystery, to pique his curiosity.
And once a man becomes curious about a woman…
He’s already lost.
7
Ethan plopped down next to me, making the swing rock.
His mission was to seduce me into cheating. He wasn’t going to give up and go home just yet.
I turned my head to look at him as a breeze blew past, sending a lock of my carefully styled hair brushing against his cheek.
His eyes darted around for a moment. He decided to fully embrace the “poor college student” persona and shot back a question. “Sienna, being an artist is expensive. Did you ever… you know… take any shortcuts to get by?”
“I mean, a girl as beautiful as you… you must have had a lot of boyfriends, right?”
He fired off two questions, his tone laced with an acidity he didn’t even seem to notice.
I let out a soft laugh.
He bristled again. “What’s so funny? I was just asking.”
I watched him, amused. Ethan looked away, uncomfortable. Then, realizing he was losing ground, he stubbornly met my gaze again.
My eyes crinkled into a smile. “Shortcuts? Didn’t you do your homework before you started pursuing me?”
“That painting that sold for over a million at auction last year? I painted that to pay for my tuition.”
Ethan’s immediate reaction was disbelief. Liam had told him I was nothing but a vapid, pretentious fraud.
When I told him the name of the painting, his disbelief turned to shock. “But the artist of that piece was some old man who died three years ago!”
I smiled, tapping his forehead gently.
“Silly. It was a made-up identity. Just a bit of marketing flair. Who cares about the details? After all, a painting is always worth more after the artist is dead.”
“As for ex-boyfriends… I’m beautiful. It’s only normal that a lot of men have pursued me.”
“Or do you not think I’m beautiful enough?”
I leaned closer, close enough to see my own reflection in his pupils.
Physical proximity is a shortcut to intimacy.
Suddenly, Ethan couldn’t meet my eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed. His gaze darted away.
He was clutching the fake bracelet so tightly his knuckles were white. He had genuinely believed it was real, just bought carelessly from a random contact without a second thought.
I sighed, taking the bracelet from his hand and slipping it onto my own wrist. “I accept the sentiment.”
Even as a fake, the bracelet caught the faint light of the evening, glinting on my wrist. Against my obviously well-cared-for skin, it looked particularly garish.
Ethan watched me, his gaze deep and searching. Finally, he spoke. “I’ll buy you a real one someday.”
I didn’t take him seriously. “Don’t worry about it,” I said languidly. “Instead, you could help me put my shoes back on. I’m tired today. I don’t feel like moving.”
Without hesitation, Ethan knelt down and took my foot in his hand.
When he saw the raw, bloody scrape on my heel, his voice was sharp with displeasure. “Why would you wear shoes like this? Your feet are torn up.”
I replied lightly, “All of Rhys’s ex-girlfriends wear high heels. I thought he might like it.”
The hand holding my foot froze.
Ethan stood up, his voice stiff. “If you’re tired, then don’t walk. I’ll carry you back.”
Fearing I might refuse, he quickly added, “Don’t worry, we can use a side entrance. No one will see. I know this place well.”
In his concern, he’d slipped up. He forgot he was supposed to be a poor college student and revealed his intimate familiarity with a multi-million dollar mansion.
I didn’t call him on it. I closed my eyes, feigning exhaustion. When he set me down in a quiet lounge, a pair of soft slippers had replaced my heels. He’d gotten them from a maid.
[Rhys: It’s been forever. Where are you? Where is she?]
Ethan sent a photo of me, asleep on the sofa. He was a decent photographer; he’d made me look beautiful.
[Rhys: Ha. A classic gold digger. Won’t even take off a hundred-thousand-dollar bracelet when she’s sleeping. You really went all out, man. The bag I bought her was only like, twenty grand.]
Ethan didn’t mention what had really happened. He just vaguely agreed with Rhys.
[Ethan: So, according to the plan, you’re going to start giving her the cold shoulder in a few days so I can move in, right?]
[Rhys: Yep. Tomorrow, you guys stay out of it. I’m going to her art studio. Time to play with my little artist.]
Ethan pressed him for details, but Rhys was deliberately vague, his reply dripping with sarcasm. [Why all the questions? Did she get to you? Forgetting who your friends are?]
Ethan immediately went silent.
Until he had more information, he wouldn’t dare reveal his hand.
I smirked, watching these conniving little boys, each with their own agenda.
It was time to raise the stakes.
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