Phantom: Her Ruthless Villain (Ruthless Triad 5)

“What’s got you girls all giggly?” Dad asked.

“Oh, girl stuff, you wouldn’t even begin to understand,” Skylar answered with a dismissive wave. “Phantom, is it already time for you to go? I’m so sorry you can’t join us for lunch at the club.”

“Sure, me too. Those tiny triangle sandwiches are my favorite.” Hak-kan answered Skylar in his patented style that infused every single word with so much sarcasm that no one could possibly think he meant any of it.

But he looked pretty sincere when he turned to me and said, “I’m going to miss you, beautiful. But I’ll call you every day.”

“I’m going to miss you too,” I answered, realizing as I said it that it wasn’t a lie or part of the show we were putting on for my father.

We kissed. A fleeting press of the lips that didn’t even come close to the ones we shared that morning in bed. Then he was gone with a wave, leaving Skylar and me behind with Dad.

“Well, I have to scoot off too,” Dad said. “Got a few meetings scheduled before the holiday break. But Livvy, could you come by the house for a squeeze-in tomorrow? Maybe around 2 pm when Muffy won’t be there? She’s still a little sore about what happened at the fox hunt afterparty.”

My sister, who stood just outside our dad’s field of vision, dipped her head and snickered silently.

She was still highly tickled by the memory of Hak-kan and me unexpectedly stealing all of “poor Leighton’s thunder” as Muffy had so angrily put it outside the earshot of the fox hunt party guests. And Skylar’s hidden glee made me have to bite my lip to keep from laughing too.

But I found myself not quite so amused when I turned my gaze back to my dad. “How about breakfast or lunch?”

“What?” Dad blinked, much like me, when Hak-kan said something seemingly out of the left field.

“Skylar and I have been doing it your way with squeeze-ins for years,” I clarified. “I prefer to meet over breakfast or lunch—not outside your house for however long it takes you to tell me my ex just knocked up your stepdaughter. So how about we do it my way this time. Lunch at the club, like I’m a human being worthy of your time.”

“I tell you, you’d think I’d grown five arms the way Dad was staring at me,” I relayed to Hak-kan on the phone that night. “He’s just not used to a version of me who knows how to stand up for herself.”

“Badass,” he said. I could hear the smile in his voice even though we were now hundreds of miles apart. “And what did Drew say?”

I answered in an impression that was almost as good as the one Skylar did of Mom. “Well…well…breakfast it is! I’ll have my assistant make us a reservation at the club.”

Speaking of Skylar. “Maybe my sister was right. She said you’re a bad influence on me.”

“I do have a habit of sowing seeds of dissension wherever I go,” Hak-kan agreed with zero remorse. “It’s my superpower.”

I laughed. “Oh, did you inherit that superpower from your parents?”

“Nah, I don’t think so,” he answered, his tone a little less amused. “Well, listen, I’m meeting up with Victor tomorrow to drive down to Luca’s in New Jersey for some other business, so I probably won’t be returning any texts. Meetings like those aren’t phone-friendly. But know, I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m done.”

I couldn’t help but notice how fast he’d changed the subject at the mention of his family.

“This is my last other business meeting for a while,” he assured me, mistaking the reason for my silence. “After that, it’s all VIP Bai3. Your Dad says he’ll know by Christmas whose deal he’s taking, and I’m not looking to embarrass you or your dad if he decides to go with us.”

Other business—that was what Hak-kan called his activities outside of VIP Bai3. The criminal kind that I’d decided not to care about from the first night we met.

“I know…” I assured him.

Then I asked, “Have you…have you thought about what happens after he decides?”

Long silence. Then: “I don’t think or talk about futures I don’t have any control over. So I guess we’re going to have to wait and see.”

Wait and see…

That felt like the theme of our relationship.

And I found myself still feeling like I was in a limbo state when I sat down across from dad the next day for lunch.

It was surprisingly pleasant. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a meal with my dad outside our annual Uganda trips. To be fair, we did spend quite a bit of time going over details for the next one. But then he turned the subject to my personal life.

“So this Hak-kan Zhang—he’s an impressive young man. Undergrad at Brown, managed to squeeze in a part-time MBA from NYU. Very, very hard worker. He told me quite a bit about his personal background, and I was surprised to hear how much you two had in common. I mean, quite a bit more than you and Garrett—have I mentioned how much I disliked that guy? He always lets me win at golf.”