Page 43 of Salvaged Hearts

But this demand for my focus was just the beginning. The first wave of guests, clamoring for any morsel of gossip theycould say they had first. No wonder these events were always open bar. You’d have to be inebriated to enjoy it.

Desperate for a break, I excused myself to the bathroom and skirted around the perimeter of the social melee. Luckily for me, years of being a nobody made me exceptionally good at evading their eyes, and I slunk into the hallway without being noticed. As the eighth of twelve, I was used to being the one nobody thought twice about.

Jeanne and Rhyett were always the high achievers, casting shadows so long none of us had a chance to compare.

Jameson always got into trouble, while Elorahadto be the center of the show and the loudest voice in any debate.

Axel had been a super easy kid until he saw the attention they got compared to the rest of us. His life was notably better once he started boxing and playing hockey, but he’d always been the one smiling while he self-destructed.

Paxton was the athlete from the time he could toddle. Come to think of it, I was pretty sure El said he took his first steps with a ball in his hand.

This left Hadlee, me, and Finn as awkward middle children. We were so preoccupied with trying to make life easier for our overwhelmed mother that our actual personalities got lost in translation.

The twins were the spunky ones, and Maverick took the title of the designated family baby—i.e., spoiled rotten punk.

The perk to being the forgotten ‘easy’ daughter was that I was just as easily forgotten in crowds. I dipped my chin and melted into the chaos, dodging bodies like traffic cones as I navigated the hallway.

All the air left my lungs in tandem with the tension in my shoulders.

I’d made it halfway back to the ostentatious bridal suite when a familiar raised voice caught my attention.Reggie.Ofcourse, the old ass would fly back from France just to make an appearance.

With a sigh, I glanced around and spotted the groom’s room door cracked open. As I inched closer to discern his words, my breath caught on my ribs like lace on barbed wire.

“I said Royal wedding.Royal, Greyson.Not rabble.”

Who the fuck was he calling rabble?My family might have built our legacy on the backs of blue-collar men, but they were the best men I knew. Far better than the entitled children masquerading as adults in that ballroom. Where I came from, not a soul in town didn’t know the last name Rhodes.

“What were you thinking?”

“Lower your voice,” Greyson uttered in an unaffected monotone.

“We raised you better than this. Ollie demonstrated just how easy it is for some whore to open her legs and destroy your foundation, but you’re just going to run off and do the same thing?”

“Lower. Your. Voice.”

The bridge of my nose burned as my mouth fell open. Frozen outside the door, I wrapped an arm around my ribs as my other hand pressed to my lips.Come on, I pled internally.Say something.

“You might’ve gotten too big for your britches the last few years, but don’t you forget how quickly you could throw this all away to get your dick wet.”

Nope.

That was enough for me. Repulsed, I reared away from the door, glancing around and relieved to see the hallway was empty. Briefly warring between opening the door to tell off the piece of shit that sat at the head of our board and fleeing, I landed on the latter.

My eyes burned as I retreated to the bridal suite on the quietest steps I could manage in these ridiculous heels.

Rabble.

I wasn’t naïve enough to believe the respect our family name garnered in Mistyvale would translate here, but I hadn’t realized how easily I would be equated to trash after years of serving their company.

My hands flew to my mouth the moment the door closed behind me. Leaning my back into it for support, I closed my eyes and pulled in a long breath.

Reginald Hart did not deserve my tears. Neither did Greyson, for that matter. In no universe would either of them have the satisfaction of seeing me rattled. I pulled in breaths until my hands stopped shaking, used the restroom, washed my hands with the water set on the coldest setting, and steeled my spine.

There was no going back now—we were already public knowledge. With that in mind, I returned to the party.

Over the next few hours, countless selfies were snapped with forced, chic smiles. These men might look like they’d been peeled from the pages of magazines, but like Reggie, they countered the appeal with a general lack of consideration for anyone or anything but the bottom line and who they could swindle to advance it.

The women, in my humble opinion, were even worse. Like Oliver’s ex-wife, they were out on the prowl. In a room full of modern-day kings, they needed only to trick one into bed, get lucky enough to carry their baby, and saving face would come with a healthy check and an NDA,after the paternity test, of course.

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