Page 55 of Her Filthy Cold Billionaire Boss

Victoria let out a seductive laugh. Mr. Wolfe father rolled his eyes. Gareth’s mother just smiled, thin and tight.

I couldn’t breathe.

Gareth stood, glass in hand, and said, “If that’s what you want, you should have started years ago.” Then he turned, handed his glass to me, and left the room.

For a moment, everyone just stared. Then, as if on cue, they erupted into bickering.

I slipped out after Gareth, not sure what I’d do if I found him but unable to stop myself.

Heart thumping painfully, I caught up to him outside the library. With careful hands, I backed him into the dark, empty room and closed the doors behind us.

“What the hell is going on with you?” I asked, too confused and upset to figure out what was going on.

“You shouldn’t be in here.”

“Sue me. I’m not leaving until you tell me why you’ve been a complete asshole all week.”

He let out a laugh, low and bitter. “It’s my default setting.”

“Try harder,” I snapped.

He was silent for a long moment, then spoke. “They’re here so I can tell them they’re out of my life for good. All of them. I’m cutting them out. Legally, financially, everything. They don’t know it yet.”

It took me a second to process. “You’re disowning your entire family. Today.”

He nodded, eyes fixed on some point behind me. “Today.”

I stared at him, my throat aching as a painfully spiky lump began to balloon. “Why would you make me part of that? Why would you have me set this whole thing up? Make me complicit?”

His jaw tightened. “I hired you to do a job.”

The words hit like a slap. I felt my chest hollow out. “That’s it?”

He turned then, finally facing me, and his expression was wrecked. Not angry. Not cruel. Just lost. “That’s all there is,” he said.

For a moment, I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to hit him, claw at him, make him hurt the way I hurt.

Instead, I said, “I quit.”

My voice didn’t even shake.

He flinched, just a little. “You’re under contract.”

I laughed. “Fire me, then.”

He said nothing, just watched as I turned and left.

I didn’t go back to my room. I didn’t collect my things. I just walked, straight out the front door, down the driveway, all the way to the road.

The sky was gunmetal gray. The wind was slicing, raw. I took out my phone, dialed the only number I could think of.

“Ruby?” I said, when she picked up. “Can you come get me?”

She didn’t ask questions. “Text me the address. I’m on my way.”

I hung up, stood by the side of the road with the wolf gaits closed behind me, and let the cold bleed the heat out of me. I tried not to think. I tried not to feel. But the old wounds were open, and every second made them wider. My family, my parents, the betrayal I’d faced after losing my brother…

He knew.