She Didn’t Fix Her Reputation. She Threw It Away. Chapter 04

She Didn’t Fix Her Reputation. She Threw It Away. Chapter 04

Later that evening, the family emergency meeting convened in the study.

The atmosphere was colder than the November night outside.

My mother sat at the head of the table, her expression grim. She looked at me not with concern, but with irritation, as if I were a stain on her reputation.

“Mark’s team has presented three options,” she announced, not looking up from the asparagus she was meticulously cutting. “A, you admit to inappropriate behavior and issue a public apology. B, we blame it on the alcohol and frame you as a victim led astray. C, we remain silent and wait for this to blow over.”

No one asked what really happened.

No one asked if I was hurt.

They just wanted to contain the damage. They just wanted to protect the election.

“I think she should marry Beckett immediately,” an older uncle chimed in. “A grand wedding will shift the public’s focus. It shows a united front between the families.”

My head snapped up. I looked at my mother.

I saw a flicker of consideration in her eyes.

And in that moment, I had to smile.

So, in their eyes, the best solution was to marry me off to the man who had just publicly crucified me.

Just stage a bigger, prettier circus to distract from the last one.

My gaze drifted past their serious faces, and I could almost see Anya’s smug smile.

I knew her type.

She thrived on breaking rules and provoking men who were used to being in control. It was a game for her, watching them lose their minds just for her.

Beckett had walked right into her trap.

And I was the collateral damage he’d willingly sacrificed to prove he could play the game, too.

“Daphne?” my mother prompted, her patience wearing thin. “What are your thoughts?”

My thoughts?

For the first time in a long time, my thoughts were perfectly clear.

I was done being a pawn in their games.

I looked at the room full of people who claimed to be acting in my best interest and said, very calmly, “I agree.”

When I left the study, the discussion was still going, a low hum of strategy and calculation.

What was best for the campaign. What was best for the families. What arrangement would be most advantageous.

Their voices faded as I walked down the hall.

Back in my room, I locked the door.

I didn’t cry.

Whatever part of me was capable of tears had been exhausted the moment that TMZ headline broke.

Now, there was only a flat, desolate feeling in my chest. A scorched earth where nothing could grow.

Beckett had fallen for Anya at first sight.

After he met her, he barely saw anyone else.

If she offhandedly mentioned liking a painting, he’d bid an obscene amount for it at Sotheby’s—the same painting he’d once mocked me for admiring, saying my taste was dated.

If she wanted to party in Ibiza, he chartered a private jet, even though it was our anniversary.

He would do anything to make Anya happy.

Including pushing me, his fiancée, into the public square and turning me into a laughingstock, just to earn a single word of praise from her.

I walked to my desk and opened a laptop no one knew I had, its case unmarked, its software encrypted.

The boot-up screen was a stylized phoenix.

Once it loaded, I logged into a secure channel.

There was only one contact in the address book.

Codename: Ghost.