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?
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Chapter 6
"Because you're clearly not listening when I talk to you and tell you that it's not about you... you come in here, acting like-"
"Oh, for God's sake." Olivia turned away, pacing once across the immaculate living room. Her heels clicked sharply against the hardwood. "Not about me? Seriously? All I want is for you to just show up," she said, spinning back toward him. "That's it. Not promises. Not five-year plans. Just... show up. Why is that so hard for you to do?"
"I do show up."
"When it suits you."
"That's not fair."
"Stop saying that!" Her voice rose, cracking slightly at the edges. "This is how I feel, Jack and I'm trying to communicate it to you. You don't get to decide what feels fair to me."
He stared at her like she was someone he didn't quite recognise.
"You know we've had a lot of talks, but you've never complained...Sounded like this before."
He was kinda right. In the past they'd had several talks, but she'd always tried to make it more of a conversation than a full blown argument like this one. She figured he'd listen if she talked slower, calmer, just like him, but putting all her emotions in check and trying to keep it all in was clearly getting her nowhere.
"Maybe I should have." she replied.
That silenced him. The air shifted. Something raw had surfaced. He spoke more carefully now. "Is this just about last night?"
Just? Was he fucking playing with her? "Yes. And the night before. And the week before that."
He shook his head slowly. "You're overreacting."
And there it was. Something inside her snapped. "Am I?" she demanded. "Because I'm starting to wonder if I'm the only one actually in this relationship."
His face hardened. "That's ridiculous. What has gotten into you?"
"Screw you for asking me that," Her voice wavered now, anger bleeding into hurt. "When was the last time you did something for me that I didn't ask for? When was the last time you cleared out time for me... No work or interference? Just me. Bet you can't remember."
"That's not true."
"It is."
He didn't respond. Because it was. The silence thickened, and finally, he said quietly, "What do you want from me, Liv?"
The question shouldn't have sounded so exhausting, but it did and Olivia swallowed. "I want to feel wanted."
The admission hung fragile between them. Jack's expression flickered - guilt? frustration? - then settled back into composure. "You are wanted." He said.
"Then stop making me feel optional."
Another beat. He looked at his watch. He actually looked at his watch, and her stomach dropped.
"You have somewhere to be," she said flatly.
"I told you, I've got an early start tomorrow."
"Of course you do."
She grabbed her bag from the console table.
"Olivia-"
"No." She held up a hand. "Don't smooth this over with another promise. I don't need reassurance. I need action, and until you can do that, stay the hell away from me."
She moved toward the door.
"Liv, don't storm out."
"I'm not storming out. I'm leaving."
She opened the door.
"Wait?" he said, tension finally creeping into his voice. "Are we going to be okay?"
She paused. Were they? "I don't know," she said honestly. "But I can't keep feeling like this."
And then she stepped out into the hallway, the door closing behind her with a quiet, final click.
__________
Olivia didn't check her phone when she walked into her apartment the following day.
She dropped her handbag onto the narrow console table by the door, kicked off her heels with less grace than usual, and stood there for a moment in the dim quiet.
Silence greeted her. No missed calls. No apology text. No 'how was work today?' No 'are you home safe?'
Her chest tightened. It had been almost twenty-four hours since she'd walked out of Jack's apartment. Twenty-four hours since she'd said she couldn't keep feeling like this. And he hadn't called. Not once.
She swallowed against the thick ache rising in her throat and finally pulled her phone from her coat pocket. The screen lit up, hopeful and accusing all at once.
Nothing. Her stomach dipped.
Two years. Two years they'd spent together.... But It hadn't always felt like this. Once, in the beginning, he'd surprised her with flowers at the office. Once, he'd cancelled meetings to take her away for a spontaneous weekend. Once, he'd looked at her like she was the only thing in the room. But for the past year... she couldn't pinpoint when it shifted. Just that it had. Slowly. Quietly. Like something precious eroding without her noticing until it was too late.
She sank onto the edge of her sofa, rubbing a hand over her face. Maybe she'd overreacted. Maybe she should call him. Maybe-
No.
She'd done enough reaching out and understanding. The heaviness in her chest pressed harder. Thinking about it wasn't helping. If anything, it was making her feel small. Disposable... And she was tired.
The kind of tired that seeped into your bones after a long day of smiling at clients and pretending your personal life wasn't unraveling thread by thread. She needed noise. Laughter. Distraction. Before she could talk herself out of it, she scrolled to Isabella's name and pressed call.
It rang once. "Liv!" Isabella answered, bright and immediate. "I was literally just about to call you."
Olivia blinked, caught off guard. "Really?"
"Yes! I just hung up with Tess. I was dialing you next."
A smile tugged at Olivia's mouth. "That's slightly terrifying. Are you both psychic now?"
"Please. If I were psychic, I'd have bought Bitcoin in 2012," Isabella shot back. "Are you okay?"
Olivia hesitated. The simple question nearly undid her, "I'm... fine," she lied, staring at the blank television screen opposite her. "Just tired."
Isabella hummed thoughtfully - the kind of hum that said she didn't believe that for a second. "Good. Then this is perfect timing."
"For what?"
"For drinks. Obviously."
Olivia's lips twitched despite herself. "Obviously."
"There's this new place Tess found -" Isabella paused dramatically, "- don't react, I know, I know - but apparently it's actually decent. It's called The Velvet Hour. Low lighting, strong cocktails, questionable life choices encouraged."
That pulled a real laugh out of her. "Questionable life choices?" Olivia echoed.
"Exactly what we need. Tess is in. You in?"
Olivia leaned back into the cushions and stared at the ceiling. A bar. Music. Her girls. No thoughts. No Jack. No almost-kisses in pink bathrooms or kitchens. Just noise.
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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.