Page 1 of King of Pride

Chapter 1 The Slap That Ended It All

Thud.

The sound of the slap echoed inside the luxury apartment, so loud that, for a moment, it seemed as though every other sound had been swallowed by it.

Everything fell into complete stillness.

Rose's body went rigid.

Her face burned where her boyfriend, Ivan Carrington, had slapped her, the heat spreading from her cheek across her entire face and down her neck. It was as if she had been filled with fire, the flames spreading from that single point of contact until her entire body felt unbearably hot.

Her cheek was burning.

Her chest burned too.

And suddenly, it felt as though her heart had stopped along with the slap that had fallen across her face.

Rose remained completely still, her eyes slowly lifting toward Ivan as tears immediately welled in them. She hadn't wanted them to come. She didn't want to cry in front of him, not after what he had just done.

But the burning sensation on her cheek and the sudden, overwhelming pain of betrayal made it impossible to hold everything back.

Anger flashed through her so violently that she couldn't even fathom how to express what she was feeling anymore.

Her fingers slowly curled at her sides. Her eyes burned with the tears threatening to spill over, while her heart began pounding faster and faster inside her chest.

Ivan stood in front of her in complete silence.

His hand slowly lowered from where it had struck her, but the rest of his body remained completely still. His face was filled with a stunned, almost disbelieving expression, as if he himself were shocked by what he had just done.

The entire room was perfectly still.

Everything in the luxury apartment was exactly where it belonged—clean, bright, expensive.

The only thing out of place in the otherwise perfectly luxurious apartment was the broken snow globe.

Glass had shattered across the perfectly polished, expensive Italian marble floor, the liquid from inside the globe spreading across the surface. Tiny stars that had once floated inside the snow globe were scattered all over the ground, along with the little figures that had been inside it.

There was a perfect wooden shelf in the middle of the apartment, completely open and clearly visible to anyone who visited.

And that snow globe had once been sitting right there, directly in front of Rose's eyes.

Every time she visited Ivan's apartment, she saw it.

It wasn't expensive.

In fact, it was a cheap copy compared to the other gifts carefully placed on that shelf. But it had been given to Ivan by his ex-girlfriend, Jessica, and that was what made it different.

Throughout their five years of relationship, Jessica had given Ivan various gifts, and nine slabs on that shelf were completely reserved for those things. Ivan had arranged and placed every one of them there very carefully.

The snow globe had been purchased during one of their trips, and Jessica had gifted it to him on his birthday.

Rose had always known that.

She had seen it every time she came into the apartment.

And now, moments ago, she had accidentally knocked it over.

It happened when Rose was moving.