Phantom: Her Ruthless Villain (Ruthless Triad 5)

He threw up his hands. “Why are you like this? Why don’t you ever stand up for yourself?”

“Garrett’s been crazy stressed at work lately,” I rushed to explain.

Eric jerked his head back. “Bitch, so are you. You founded, run, and work at an accessible clinic for women with disabilities. And you still managed to find the time to throw him a surprise party on his last birthday.”

True. But… “I don’t need anybody making a huge fuss about my birthday anyway. And reminding Garrett would have just made him feel guilty when he already has so much stuff on his plate—ooh, isn’t that the construction worker you were flirting with last week?”

I pointed at the tattooed honey brown man standing in line for the Smith machine.

Eric followed my finger and let out a frustrated growly sound when he saw who I was pointing at. “Yes, that’s him. And I know I shouldn’t let you change the subject, but those tattoos….”

Eric fanned himself. “You know I’m powerless when it comes to racially ambiguous bad boys.”

“Yes, I know you are,” I said, sympathetic to his dilemma but also grateful for the distraction from my disappointing birthday plans. “And you should go talk to him while he’s still standing around and waiting.”

Eric shifted hesitantly from foot to foot. “Do you think so?”

“I’m not even sure why we’re even having this conversation,” I answered with a shake of my head. “I mean, we both know you’re going over there.”

Eric grimaced and inhaled through his teeth. “Yeah, I am. But really quick before I go….”

He spewed advice while walking away backward. “I understand that your biological clock is ticking, but is Garrett truly everything you want in a marriage partner? I mean, you don’t even feel comfortable enough to tell him that he forgot your birthday. I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure engagements aren’t supposed to be this much of a trudge. Okay, love you, bye!”

I wasn’t any kind of expert either, but Eric’s words echoed in my mind as I walked over to the treadmill section.

I mean, I wanted to have a baby, and Garrett and I were great on paper. Perfect even. Both my mother and my sister insisted that I was so lucky to have gotten a second chance with him.

They’d been pleasantly shocked that despite my “circumstances,” I’d been able to land an i-banker who hailed from the prominent Easton Whiskey family and hadn’t understood why I broke up with him ten years ago.

So, they were overjoyed when I started dating him again five years after our breakup. And they’d acted like it was a miracle akin to Jesus turning spinster water into wife wine when he actually asked me to marry him.

And they were right. I’d been sure they were right…at least up until I delivered Luca and Amber Ferraro’s baby. The mafia don had been so connected with his blind wife during her difficult delivery, so obviously in love with her.

It had made me want things I never had before in my relationship with Garrett. Not just respect and occasional companionship when our schedules synced, along with the eventual birth of our double heir child.

I hungered for things like passion and tender love. The kind of things that I’d assumed only existed in books and films until I witnessed it for myself in real life.

Amber was blind and couldn’t see the way her husband looked at her. But I had no doubt she’d felt it.

And over a year later, as I climbed on the only empty treadmill in the packed gym, I wondered what it would be like to have someone look at me the way Luca Ferraro looked at his wife. With such intensity. With such love….

Though, speaking of intense stares—a little old lady walking slowly on the treadmill beside my chosen machine did a visible double-take when she saw me.

Then outright stared.

Oh, no, here we go again. Most days, I loved Eric’s neighborhood gym, which bordered Chinatown because it was still somewhat diverse compared to the rest of a rapidly gentrifying Manhattan. But there was a particular portion of the population among their membership—like little old Asian men and women—who didn’t mind openly staring at me when I wandered into their purview. As if I was a freak of nature, a blue-black giraffe who’d somehow wandered into their ecosystem of Chinese people and gay men.

And unfortunately, this particular gaper wanted to talk.

After a shocked moment, she immediately began to babble in a language that sounded like Chinese.

Okay, well….pretending not to hear or see her, I punched in a light six miles an hour jog into the machine and stuck my AirPods into my ears.

Lizzo’s voice filled my headphones, replacing the old woman’s nosy questions. But then I startled when someone patted me insistently on the arm.

It was the little old lady trying to get my attention.