Page 74 of Scandalous Kingpin
“Let’s go,” I rasped, then gritted my teeth before adding, “We’re done here.”
The trip back to the yacht was a blur. I waited until I was alone, in the cabin where her scent still lingered, to unleash. Before I knew it, items were flying across the room. Hitting the wall and crumbling to pieces at my feet.
I swept all the toiletries off the bathroom counter and reveled in the sound of glass shattering and skidding across the hardwood.
I scrubbed a palm down my face and invited a dangerous calm to settle over me as bitterness bit into my chest.
This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
Chapter Thirty-Four
IVY
Iwas numb. Or maybe I felt too much. It didn’t really matter because nothing would ever be the same.
My mood was gloomy which wasn’t helping the affairs of my heart.
My eyes strayed to the sky and I hated that the usual gray, dreary English weather refused to cooperate today. I would prefer anything that would spare me from the blue.
The past twenty-four hours were dominated by my broken heartbeats, sending a raw ache through my chest. Everything seemed surreal. My best friend killed my father. The fact that Juliette could even do something like that—kill in cold blood—flabbergasted me. Now that I’d gotten some space and time to think about it, I couldn’t stop my mind. Juliette wasn’t who I thought she was. I questioned every word she’d ever spoken to me, everything she’d ever done. I kept thinking I would wake up and it would all be a bad dream, but I never did.
And my husband had kept it from me.
My vision blurred, the shimmer of the sun against the lush green grass contrasting my gloomy mood. But no tears came.
My brothers hadn’t said a peep about my husband or friend, only exchanging worried glances whenever they thought I wasn’t looking. They didn’t try to tell me lies or feed me platitudes. Their motto was usually keeping things from me, accustomed to their idea of protecting me. After all, it was how I learned of Sofia and my twin sisters.
Instead, they let me sit in silence, staring at the beautiful landscape and deceiving weather that invited me to go outside. But I didn’t. It was all deceitful, just liketheywere.
“You should get away from the window,” Aemon urged. “You’ll catch a cold.”
“In a moment,” I said. My voice sounded strange to my ears.
“Ivy, you can’t keep—” Aemon broke off with a grunt when Bren punched him in the stomach.
“It’s okay, sis. You do what you need to get over that douchebag and move on. You deserve so much more than that fucker. And we’ll ensure the DiLustros and Juliette pay for what they’ve done.”
All my pent-up emotions from the past twenty-four hours burst forth, and I was swept up in a tsunami of hurt, anger, and betrayal, but most of all heartbreak. I let it all wash over me and broke down into sobs. I cried until my eyes burned and my body ached.
Somehow, I found myself crying into my brothers’ chests, all three of them wrapped around me in a protective cocoon.
Juliette lied to me. Christian lied by omission. For fuckingmonths.
I’d lost a best friend and the love of my life in one fell swoop.
I knew I’d never be the same.
I finally depleted all my tears. After the grueling journey from Montenegro to Ireland, I had little left in my tank.
Two weeks had gone by since I walked away, and this ache in my chest refused to ease. Juliette had been blowing up my phone with messages and calls. I ignored them all. The news traveled fast because it didn’t take long for Davina and Wynter to follow suit, but I ignored their calls too.
And soon a string of emails, voicemails, and messages followed through. It was all the same though. They gave excuses and reasons why I should see the reason and forgive my best friend and husband.
But there had been nothing but silence from Christian, making my chest feel like it had been ripped out. It wasn’t that I would have forgiven him, but maybe everything about us had been a lie.
My phone pinged on the table, but I ignored it. I didn’t want to deal with anything in my empty-headed state. The sense of loss I could deal with. The betrayal, I couldn’t. Ironically enough, Athair’s betrayal didn’t sting as much as my husband’s and best friend’s.
Instead of dealing with it, I avoided the world around me and lost myself in the Murphy library, rereading my old favorite thrillers and steering clear of anything romance-adjacent.
