Page 91 of Billionaire’s Ruin

She texted again.

Typical Stephanie. Her nosiness was a weapon she wielded with surgical precision.

I tried brushing her off.

Just someone from work.

Delete.

A colleague.

Delete.

There was no point lying. Not to her. She’d smell it from space.

So I told her the truth—or at least the truth I could bear to admit.

He’s someone important to me.

I hit send before I could second-guess myself.

It wasn’t a lie. If anything, it was embarrassingly honest.

After that, I just sat there, staring at my mobile, watching my own faint reflection warp across the black screen.

A heavy throb pounded at the base of my throat.

Dannie.

Just the thought of his name felt like a bruise blooming in my ribs—tender, aching, impossible to push aside.

He’d always been there for me—steady, reliable, endlessly selfless in ways I never deserved. When everything else in my life cracked right down the middle, he stayed. He kept the pieces together with quiet, steady hands and never once asked for anything in return.

And when he pulled out that ring—the stupid little souvenir from our stupid little charade, back when we’d play-pretended our way through a borrowed life as husband and wife—it nearly broke something inside me.

The way he cradled it, like it still mattered.

The way his voice quivered, like the memory still hurt him.

For a split second, I wanted to say yes.

Yes to the ring.

Yes to the pretend marriage.

Yes to him.

To everything.

But then—just one mention of Kai.

One whisper of his name.

One small, unintentional reminder of him—and my entire body turned traitor.

My pulse took off. A vise tightened around my ribs, squeezing the air and the logic straight out of me. Every rational thought I tried to cling to slipped straight through my fingers.

I despised it.