Phantom: Her Ruthless Villain (Ruthless Triad 5)

A resentful note had crept into my voice, so I made myself stop. But apparently, my feelings on the matter were pretty clear.

“You don’t want to go,” he guessed easily.

“I…” I tried and failed to come up with an acceptable answer. Instead, the truth came spilling out. “My stepsister is pregnant. Garrett’s the father.”

“Da fuck? You went back to him, and he’s just now telling you he knocked up your stepsister?”

“What? No, I didn’t go back to him. I just went home after he told me he’d moved his things out of the brownstone and left my purse in the mailbox. I would never, ever get back together with him after what he did.”

Another silence. It stretched out even longer than the first. Then he simply said, “So he’s with Leighton now.”

“Yes, I guess getting caught cheating just wasn’t enough for them.” I plopped back onto my bed with a miserable sigh. “They both had to come here for Thanksgiving to tell my dad and his wife that Leighton’s pregnant—so Dad can, you know, still keep the business in the family if he sells it to Easton Whiskey. Because as it turns out, our relationship meant nothing to Garrett. I was just some pawn in a business deal. To the point that my father is asking me to come to the party, sit through their engagement announcement, and act like I’m cool with the whole thing. When really, I’m so, so angry and sad, and I don’t know what to do with any of this. I just want to return home and go back to delivering babies. You know, giving people joy. But I’m stuck here in this kabuki show my life has been ever since I became the lucky seven-month-old the Glendavers plucked out of that Ugandan orphanage.”

I’ve run out of breath by the time I’m done. And my throat is contracting around a lump I can’t swallow down, no matter how hard I try.

So I wait. I wait for Hak-kan’s response. For some reason, it feels like he’s the anchor in a stormy sea. The one thing I can hold onto to keep all these horrible emotions from overwhelming me.

But he just says, “Alright.”

Alright.

That’s when I get it. How crazy I must sound. The one-night-stand he’d probably already forgotten about, calling him to unload all her family drama on him.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry for—I shouldn’t have called you on Thanksgiving. Go, go, be with your family.”

“Alright,” he said again. And this time, he hung up.

So no, I didn’t make it downstairs for Thanksgiving Dinner. I texted Skylar that I wasn’t feeling well, and she texted me right back.

SKYLAR: Yes, probably for the best. You get your rest, and we’ll figure out how to break the news to Mama tomorrow morning.

Technically, I’d lied to my sister. I wasn’t really sick. But I felt weak and cold. I spent the rest of Thanksgiving underneath the covers, rabbit holing articles about how to hold your head up in the face of humiliation.

I found nothing of real use, though. Just advice like, remember who you are at the core, ignore the person humiliating you, don’t react angrily, and perhaps most perplexing of all, let your anger liberate you.

But how?

I had no core. I’d made my entire life out of playing the side character in other people’s stories.

I’d started off as the lucky orphan who suddenly found herself one of the heirs to a bourbon dynasty. My adoption was still brought up in puff pieces about my father, like my very existence in his family automatically made him one of the world’s most saintly millionaires.

I’d grown up to become the doctor who delivered the baby in other women’s stories of triumph. But, of course, I’d never gotten one of my own.

Outside the clinic, I was supposed to be the wife who married the perfect on paper guy. But it was never about me. Daughter, Doctor, Fiancée—they were all roles I played for others—

Except for that one night.

I remembered looking at the Dragon over that birthday candle, and for the first time in my life, deciding to do what I wanted. Take what I wanted.

A kiss. Just a kiss.

But for me, it had been a miraculous act of rebellion.

Maybe that was why I decided to set myself up for even more humiliation by calling him.

Alright.

The one word swirled around my head as I fell into a fitful sleep.

That night, I went to the hunt’s afterparty naked. No one would loan me any clothing, so I did the best I could with my hands. But it wasn’t enough. Everyone ended up pointing and laughing until Skylar came up to me with a mirror and said, “Look at yourself, Livvy. Just look at yourself.”

My heart thundering with fear, I held up the mirror….and woke up to the sun shining way too brightly through my windows.