Page 159 of Savage Reign

I frownedwhen the phone rang. I was in my bathroom, getting ready for my day, and the phone was on the counter.

I looked down at the screen.

Unknown number.

This was the fifth call from an unknown number I’d received since the day after we went to the club’s opening. Perhaps the person who had my number before me liked to give their number out.

That was the only explanation. Who else would have my number?

I grabbed the phone and picked it up. “Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello?” I repeated, getting frustrated. I wished they would stop calling me. Or hell, answer.

It was the same every time I picked it up.

“Stop calling me,” I said into the phone and hung up.

I turned back to my reflection in the mirror.

I was starting to get some color back onto my skin. It wasn’t so hard to see myself in the mirror anymore. For the first time in my life, I didn’t look tired. Or sad. Or hopeless.

I looked… happy.

I practiced smiling.

The look still felt unnatural, but I was getting there.

And it was all thanks to my men.

Our problems weren’t resolved. Sebastian was still out there, and he wouldn’t stop looking for me. Not until I took away his chance of getting what he wanted most.

Stocken Isle.

And there was only one way to ensure that. I needed to marry. I knew my men opposed that because they didn’t want me to think they were only with me for the inheritance. But I knew they weren’t. At some point, I had come to trust them completely. I just needed to convince them of that.

I also knew that if we married before my twenty-fifth birthday, I was cutting myself off from the resources to be independent. To stand on my own.

I paused, waiting for the panic to set in.

It never did.

I was okay with giving up this independence. My men would never let me go, and in my own little fucked-up way of thinking, I felt secure in that fact. Like I was finally able to stand on steady ground when everything had been so shaky in my life up until now.

Everything was going to be okay.

I placed my hand on my stomach, and perhaps I was seeing things, but I swore there was a very slight bump there.

Wewere going to be okay.

No matter what.

32

MILA

I let outa frustrated sigh when my phone rang again.

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