BAD REPUTATION
It was her hair that fascinated him. The reddish-brown mass was parted high to one side, windswept almost. And then there was her make-up, neutral save for the liner around her eyes and the bold lip colour... was that purple?
His gaze narrowed over it and she must have sensed his attention, her eyes flickering in his direction. "You know, it's rude to stare."
Her voice was husky, a crisp edge that rasped along his spine and sealed her appeal. Derek was hooked. Her eyes were back on the doors, her lack of interest obvious.
He should've taken it as a sign, but since when had he backed off from anything he fancied?
Chapters
Share
Chapter 1
Olivia Carter sat in the driver's seat, gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly, her coffee forgotten in the cupholder. The parking lot was quiet, save for the occasional squeak of tires on asphalt and the distant hum of the city. Her friend, Tessa's voice came through the speaker, sharp and teasing as always.
"I still can't believe Jack canceled again last night," Olivia said, shaking her head. Her eyes scanned the row of sedans and SUVs, but she wasn't really looking.
"I can believe it," Tessa shot back. "Honestly, Liv, I've hated that guy from day one and you know it. What the hell do you see in him... Well, apart from his money? You deserve better than-"
"He had a rough night," Liv interrupted gently, laughing despite herself. "He didn't mean it. You know how busy he is..."
"Busy? Sure. Busy being shady. Too busy to remember the one thing that actually matters... showing up for the woman he supposedly loves?" Tessa groaned. "You know what, I'm sick of this, I and Izzy have been talking, and we might have to stage an intervention."
Olivia chuckled, shaking her head. "Jokes on you, Tess. I'm about to meet up with Izzy right now." She tapped the phone lightly against her ear for emphasis. "I'm showing her the houses this afternoon, so... mission accomplished before your intervention even starts."
"You are?" Tessa's laugh carried a mix of disbelief and amusement. "Well, that sucks. I was really looking forward to her and I talking some sense into you."
"Yes," Olivia replied, a grin tugging at her lips. "And that means I get to see her before you talk her into your bloody intervention."
Tessa snorted. "Wouldn't stop us, though. Just... slow us down a little."
"Yeah, yeah. Intervention or not," Olivia said with a laugh. "I'll survive."
The line went quiet for a beat before Tessa's voice softened. "Alright, Liv. Good luck with your client. Don't let her pick a dump just to mess with me."
"Copy that. Love you, Tess."
"Love you too. And remember... intervention pending."
With that, Olivia ended the call and tucked her phone into her bag. She exhaled, letting the tension in her shoulders ease as she opened the car door. The late-afternoon sun spilled over the lot, glinting off the polished SUVs and giving everything a warm, golden glow. She stepped out, smoothing the front of her suit and grabbing the folder of listings she'd been preparing. Today was about showcasing homes, not obsessing over Jack.
But even as she clicked the car door shut behind her, a small, nagging thought lingered-maybe Tess was right. It did hurt when Jack had cancelled on their date yet again. She'd spent forty minutes picking that dress last night. Forty minutes for a text that said Rain check? She'd tried to understand but if she was being honest with herself, she'd been very disappointed.
Tessa could be right. Maybe some interventions were unavoidable... maybe even necessary. And she and Jack had to have a serious conversation about their relationship.
____________
"Easy, little sister," Derek said into his phone as he pressed the button for the lift to her floor. "I'm here now,"
"Less of the little," his sister, Isabella snapped, her irritation making him grin.
He gave a mock shudder. "Quit the strop, then." Someone swept up behind him, a scent wrapping around him, vanilla twisted up in something so enticing he was damned if he could place it, and his eyes swerved of their own accord.
"Strop!" Isabella continued on the other end, "You were supposed to be here half an..."
His sister's voice trailed away into the distance, his sight landing on the woman whose interesting scent had nothing on the visual. He felt his mouth quirk, his interest instant.
She was beautiful. So not his type, a definite 'no' on paper, but when presented with the physical, she was all kinds of yes. Usually, the women he went for looked very different. Slim, tall, models even but this woman looked nothing like that.
She was the opposite in fact. She was short, but in a way that made her even cuter, still quite short despite the heels she wore and she was... Chubby. Curvy. Literally carrying all the right fat in the right places.
She faced the lift, waiting just as he was, one purple stiletto tapping impatiently, her body encased in a fitted black trouser suit, a folder hooked under one arm, all quite usual but-
"Are you listening to me, Derek?"
"Sure, I'll be right up," he said distractedly, cutting the call and pocketing the device.
It was her hair that fascinated him. The reddish-brown mass was parted high to one side, windswept almost. And then there was her make-up, neutral save for the liner around her eyes and the bold lip colour... was that purple?
His gaze narrowed over it and she must have sensed his attention, her eyes flickering in his direction. "You know, it's rude to stare."
Her voice was husky, a crisp edge that rasped along his spine and sealed her appeal. Derek was hooked. Her eyes were back on the doors, her lack of interest obvious. He should've taken it as a sign, but since when had he backed off from anything he fancied? In truth, her lack of interest only added to the appeal.
"Rude?" he said, raising his brow. "I've been called many things before- arrogant, reckless, even an asshole-but rude, not had that one yet."
Her mouth twitched but she didn't turn to look at him, the ping of the lift arriving serving as a temporary interruption.
The doors opened and he gestured for her to precede him. "See, I'm not entirely rude."
She looked at him then, her grey eyes sparkling and those bold-coloured lips lifting into a smile that momentarily gutted him. Jesus, she was hot. The bow-like shape stretched and still her lower lip was full- swollen, even-almost as though it had just been thoroughly devoured. Maybe she'd had to reapply that colour after it had been rubbed clean away. Oh, to be the cause of that little misdemeanour.
"Thank you."
It took a second to realise she had spoken, to realise he was staring all over again, and then sanity returned. "You're welcome-which floor?"
He pressed the number for his sister and her thick black lashes lowered to trace his move. "The same." she replied.
He nodded and came to stand beside her. The lift closed and together they stood, the silence heavy and loaded... at least to him.
You may also like
7.6
The heavy prison gates clanged shut, ending three years. I scanned the empty lot for Julian, my fiancé. Deserted.
Biting December wind my only welcome. Calls to Julian, father, mother: unanswered/disconnected.
Shivering, Julian's tracker showed an unfamiliar Long Island estate. A freezing cab left me penniless; I walked through the blizzard. Through a mansion window, I saw Julian, my stepsister Clara, a small boy—a perfect family. Julian, who hated children, doted on him, and Clara wore *my* engagement ring.
I overheard Julian's call: he, my father, conspired to frame me for Clara’s medical error, saving their company and future. My family hadn't just abandoned me; they plotted my destruction.
A delayed text from Julian popped up, lying about a "cross-border meeting," promising to pick me up tomorrow. Despair vanished, replaced by a cold, terrifying smile. Typing "Understood," I turned from their stolen life, walking into the blizzard, fueled by burning rage.
7.3
Clara came home from a fourteen-hour board meeting to the sound of a piercing scream in the playroom.
When she rushed in, she found her husband, Chadwick, kneeling on the floor in a panic.
But he wasn't looking at their five-year-old son, Leo, who had a massive bleeding welt on his forehead.
Instead, Chadwick was trembling as he held the nanny's daughter, Autumn, who barely had a microscopic scratch.
"She needs ice. And antibacterial ointment," Chadwick snapped, carrying the nanny's daughter away and leaving his bleeding son behind.
From that moment, the nightmare only escalated.
Chadwick ordered Clara to cook a three-hour meal for the nanny's kid, threw away Leo's favorite toys because Autumn sneezed, and even secretly took the nanny and her daughter on Leo's promised Disney trip.
The final humiliation came at the Met Gala.
Right before their sponsor speech, Chadwick received a frantic call from the nanny claiming Autumn was having a panic attack.
He abandoned Clara in front of hundreds of flashing cameras, sprinting out of the ballroom.
Clara stood completely alone, the humiliation eating through her veins like acid.
She couldn't understand how a father could call the nanny's kid his "little princess" while watching his own son cry.
Why was he treating his own flesh and blood like garbage just to play savior to another woman's child?
Suddenly, the blinding camera flashes were blocked by a massive shadow.
Erasmo Chase, the heir to New York's largest financial dynasty, stepped out of the darkness and shielded her.
"A man like that is unworthy of your grief, Ms. Best," he whispered, pressing a silk handkerchief into her trembling hand.
Looking at the sharp profile of the powerful man beside her, Clara's shock hardened into a lethal, cold fury.
She was going to dump her family's shares, crash the board, and make Chadwick lose absolutely everything.
9.3
On the first anniversary of our reconciliation, I thought my tech mogul husband and I had finally turned a corner. Then I discovered our entire marriage was a spectator sport. It was a cruel, year-long revenge game orchestrated by him and his lover, and I was the punchline.
For their amusement, I was poisoned with food contaminated with dog feces, publicly humiliated with a twenty-million-dollar auction scam, and beaten until my ribs broke by his family's private security. I endured it all, playing the part of the clueless, loving wife while they laughed about it in a group chat called "The Jillian Andrews Comedy Hour."
But their grand finale was a step too far. I overheard him calmly planning to leave me to die in a remote cabin during a blizzard, a "tragic accident" that would finally set him free to be with his mistress.
He thought he was writing the final chapter of my life.
He didn't know I was about to use his murder plot as my own perfect escape. I faked my death, vanished into thin air, and left him to explain to the world how his beloved wife disappeared off the face of the earth.
9.5
For nine years, I poured my soul into proving I was worthy of my wealthy boyfriend, Clayton Wright. I endured his endless, humiliating "tests," sacrificing everything for a place in his world.
But at our engagement party, the final test was revealed. He stood by as his ex-girlfriend, Anjelica, framed me for shattering a priceless family heirloom.
"You manipulative bitch!" he snarled, slapping me across the face. He then ordered his bodyguard to force me to my knees, grinding them into the sharp, broken fragments of the watch.
As I bled on the floor, he pulled out his phone and gave a single command: demolish my childhood home, the last piece I had of my deceased father.
He destroyed my past and my dignity, yet minutes later, my phone buzzed with a message from him.
"The engagement is just for show. I'll still marry you. You're my destiny."
That night, clutching the last of my father's life insurance, I booked a one-way ticket and vanished. He thought he had finally broken his little project, but he had just unleashed a woman with nothing left to lose.
7.4
Alaya woke up in the sterile hospital room to a devastating reality: her six-month-old baby was gone, lost in a horrific car crash.
But as the memories crashed into her, she realized she had been reborn. She was back three years before her ultimate death, back to the moment she remembered lying bleeding on the asphalt while her husband, Hardy, shielded his mistress from the freezing rain.
When Hardy finally showed up at the ward, he coldly dismissed the crash as a mere accident and immediately left to comfort his young lover. To make matters worse, Alaya secretly checked her medical files and found a terrifying detail: someone had intentionally slipped beta-blockers into her system, a lethal drug for her transplanted heart. And Hardy didn't care about her dead baby or her irreversible infertility. He only coldly confirmed with the doctor that her heart was still viable.
A horrifying suspicion made Alaya's blood run cold. Why was her husband so obsessed with protecting her transplanted heart while treating her like garbage? And why was his perfectly healthy mistress secretly racking up massive bills at an advanced cardiac hospital?
Realizing she was nothing but a vessel in a twisted, deadly game, Alaya didn't shed another tear.
She packed her belongings, left her flawless diamond wedding ring on the cold marble table, and vanished from their penthouse.
When Hardy finally tracked her down, she threw a thick stack of documents onto the table.
"Sign the divorce papers," she said, her eyes completely dead.
9.1
I was supposed to be celebrating my twenty-first birthday and my engagement to the man I loved.
Instead, I was bleeding out in a crushed car, listening to my fiancé Greggory and my stepsister Alta laughing over the car's Bluetooth.
They had cut my brakes.
As the steering wheel crushed my shattered ribs, they cheerfully clinked their champagne glasses, celebrating their hostile takeover of my family's media empire.
I tried to scream for help, but my lungs wouldn't work.
Then, Alta's sweet voice delivered the final, fatal blow over the speaker.
"Your mother? I took care of her too."
I died in the freezing rain, my heart frozen with absolute hatred as I realized every touch and whispered promise was just a calculated step toward my murder.
I gave them everything, treating them like my closest family.
Why did they have to kill my innocent mother? Why did I blindly trust two vipers who only wanted to drain my blood?
Opening my eyes again, the smell of gasoline was gone.
I was back in my bedroom, safe and unharmed, on the exact day of my twenty-first birthday party.
The day the tragedy began.
Downstairs, my murderers were waiting to spring their trap, expecting me to blindly accept Greggory's proposal.
But this time, I put on a blood-red dress, grabbed the photo of their secret affair, and walked down the stairs to choose a new fiancé—the most ruthless billionaire in the room.