His words said one thing, his actions another, as he inched toward her.

Then, a sharp clap reverberated.

He had struck his own face.

"Andrew!" Lilah gasped, shaken.

"Can't you hear me? Get out!" Andrew's voice thundered; he was racked with an internal struggle as he knelt, tormented.

Panic flaring, Lilah reached for her phone, ready to call for help, and stepped back, only for the door to slam shut behind her.

They had been set up.

In the dim glow of the hotel parking lot, a woman's gaze was fixed on a lit window, her eyes glinting icily.

The voice at the other end of the call asked, “Is everything in place?"

"Yes, it's all arranged. Lilah has arrived," Katie replied with a chill in her tone. "Andrew's been dosed heavily; he won't last. Soon, the press will swarm, and Lilah's reputation will be in tatters."

There was no chance Gerard would stand by Lilah after this debacle.

She was poised to become the scandal of Eleywood.

Yet...

A clenched fist betrayed Katie's inner turmoil.

Katie had finally found a man who stirred her heart, only to use him in her vendetta, which gnawed at her. But her disdain for Lilah overpowered everything else. Unless she could eclipse Lilah, Katie felt she would always be second best.

The plan wasn't to go this far. Her original intent was to coax Andrew into asking Lilah out. But Katie hadn't anticipated Andrew's resistance.

His words haunted her. "If I knew she didn't return my feelings and I forced myself on her nonetheless, I'd be disgusted with myself. Her happiness is all that matters to me."

Despite Katie's manipulations, Andrew's resolve stood firm.

Jealousy gnawed at Katie's sanity.

Why did Lilah have such a hold on him?

When persuasion failed, Katie resorted to subterfuge.

She slipped the drug into Andrew's drink. He, preoccupied with his own sorrows and drinking heavily, suspected nothing.

Soon enough, Andrew was intoxicated. Katie maneuvered him into the hotel and sent the message to Lilah from his phone.

Lilah was the seductress in Katie's narrative, one she wished would disappear.