Chapter 3 - Blair
My head feels like someone took a sledgehammer to my temples, but the physical pain is nothing compared to the carnage lighting up my phone screen.
I squint against the harsh morning light filtering through the cheap blinds of my bedroom window, scrolling through the notifications that have been piling up while I was passed out.
I wish I could say I drank myself into oblivion, but the truth is sadder.
I came home, cried into my pillow for hours, and fell asleep from sheer emotional exhaustion.
Now, reality is here to kick me while I’m down.
From: Margaret Pemberton
Subject: Holiday Gala Contract
Dear Blair, In light of recent events and the shift in tone regarding the committee’s direction, we feel it is best to terminate our agreement effective immediately. We will be handling the Christmas logistics internally.
My stomach drops through the mattress. That contract was my rent for the next three months. That was my grocery money. That was my heat.
I swipe to the next one.
From: Luxe Events
Subject: Upcoming Consultation
Hi Blair, we’re going to have to cancel our meeting. We’ve decided to go with a firm that feels like a better brand alignment for our clientele.
I toss the phone onto the duvet. I don’t cry. I’m done crying. It almost doesn’t feel real that years of networking, ass-kissing, and seventy-hour work weeks could be worth nothing after one horrible night.
Ryder didn’t just break my heart. He took everything I’ve built.
I drag myself out of bed, my limbs feeling heavy and detached. I need coffee. I need enough caffeine to jumpstart a dead heart.
I shuffle into the living room, my oversized t-shirt hanging off one shoulder, and freeze.
The sound of a key turning in the lock echoes through the small apartment.
Panic spikes in my chest—a sharp, hot jolt—when I hear it because it can only be one person. And sure enough, the door swings open, and Ryder walks in like he has every right to be here.
He’s wearing sunglasses inside. Of course he is. He’s dressed in a cashmere hoodie, looking fresh, unbothered, and annoyed that I exist in his general vicinity.
"For fuck’s sake," he says, wrinkling his nose as he scans the apartment. "It smells like stale sadness in here. Open a window."
I cross my arms over my chest, fighting the urge to hide until he leaves. I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me cower. "Get out."
"Relax. I'm not here for you," he sneers, pushing past me toward the kitchen. "I just came to get my stuff."
"Your stuff?" I follow him, my bare feet slapping against the cold laminate floor. "You don't live here, Ryder.”
He ignores me, heading straight for the counter. He starts unplugging the stainless steel Breville espresso machine.
My jaw drops. "Are you serious?"
"What?" He doesn't even look at me, struggling with the cord tangled behind the microwave. "I paid for it."
"You bought that for my birthday," I snap, my voice rising. "It was a gift."
"I bought it for the *apartment*," he corrects, yanking the plug free. "And since I paid three grand for it so I didn't have to drink your instant swill when I stayed over, I’m taking it. God knows you can’t afford the beans for it anymore anyway."
The insult lands like a punch to the face.
I watch him wrap the cord around the machine, his movements casual, entitled.
He’s stripping my home of the one luxury item I actually use, not because he needs it—he has a commercial-grade machine at the estate—but because he can.
Because he wants to remind me of my place.
"You are unbelievable," I whisper. "You humiliate me in front of the entire town, you destroy my business, and you come here to steal a coffee maker?"
Ryder hauls the machine into his arms, turning to face me. He’s got a sneer on his face that I want to slap off.
"Don't be dramatic." He sighs, adjusting his grip on the machine. "Honestly, you shouldn't be this surprised. The writing has been on the wall for months. You just refused to read it."
"Really?" I laugh, a harsh, brittle sound. “You told me you loved me.”
He rolls his eyes. "That’s just something you say. Face it, Blair. We didn't fit. We never did." He steps closer, and for the first time, his face loses that bored, vapid expression and twists into something meaner. "My dad was right about you."
The air leaves the room.
I stiffen, my fingernails digging into my palms. "What?"
"My dad," Ryder says, enjoying my flinch. "He told me months ago I needed to break things off.” Ryder smirks, a cruel twist of his lips. “I should have listened to him sooner."
Silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.
Gabriel.
Gabriel Hollis—the man who watched me across dinner tables with eyes that felt like they were stripping me bare, the man whose intensity terrified and thrilled me in equal measure—thinks I’m not good enough for his son.
It shouldn't hurt. I should expect it from a man like Gabriel, who built an empire on ruthlessness. But for some reason, the idea that he looks at me and sees nothing but a waste of his son's time... it twists a knife in my gut deeper than Ryder ever could.
"Get the fuck out of my apartment," I say again. My voice is deadly quiet.
Ryder chuckles, adjusting the heavy machine in his arms. "Gladly.”
He walks out.
The door clicks shut behind him, leaving me in the silence of my unraveling life.
I stand in the middle of my kitchen, staring at the empty spot on the counter where the coffee maker used to be. It’s a small thing. A stupid thing. But it’s the catalyst that finally burns away the grief and leaves nothing but white-hot, blinding rage.
My dad was right about you.
Is that what he thinks? That I’m just some poor girl trying to latch onto his family’s prestige?
I walk to the bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. My eyes are puffy, my hair is a disaster, and I look like a victim.
I hate victims.
I grew up watching my mother be a victim. I watched her cry over men who didn't deserve her tears, watched her shrink until she was invisible just to keep the peace. I promised myself I would never be her.
And yet, here I am.
If Gabriel Hollis thinks I’m nothing... then I have nothing to lose.
Ryder is terrified of his father. That was the one thing that was always clear. Ryder craves Gabriel’s approval and fears his father’s judgment.
A dark, twisted idea starts to take root in my mind. It’s dangerous. It’s reckless. It’s the kind of thing that ruins lives.
But my life is already ruined.
So fuck it.
If I’m going to be the villain in their story—the gold digger, the unwanted ex, the trash from Mulberry—then I’m going to be the most memorable mistake the Hollis family ever made.
And I’m going to enjoy every single second of it.