Page 144 of Ink Me Three Times
My hands are shaking.
I can barely see straight through the red blooming behind my eyes. She steps closer, and I swear the air temperature drops ten degrees.
“You’ve been playing house a littletoo well,” she says, eyes raking over me with surgical cruelty. “The mommy act. The good girl routine. It’s adorable, really. But this little fantasy you’re living in? It’s going to pop. Soon.”
I square my shoulders. “You don’t know what I’ve been doing.”
Her smile stretches wider, the sharp edge of a blade hidden behind lip gloss and perfect teeth.
“Oh, but I do. I know exactly what you’ve been doing.” She gestures lazily at my stomach. “Or should I say,whoyou’ve been doing.”
My chest goes ice cold.
“What did you just say?”
She tilts her head with feigned innocence, voice dipping low and venomous.
“Don’t play dumb. I’ve been pregnant, remember? I know the signs. The bloat. The constant stomach holding. The exhaustion in your face even when you pretend you’re fine. Come on, Ivy… do you think I’m an idiot? I can see how you’ve played Freddie and got what you wanted out of him. Freddie iseasyto play.”
My jaw clenches so hard it hurts.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I whisper, but the words wobble. I hate that she can hear the crack in my voice.
“And yet,” she purrs, circling closer, “here I am. Reminding you that Freddie? He’s easy. So damn easy. All it takes is a sad story and a sweet smile, and boom… he’s yours. He wants to be needed. Wants to feel like the hero. But that means he could also be mine at just the click of my fingers.”
She steps in so close I can smell her perfume, sickly sweet, suffocating.
“And you? You knew that. You used that.”
I flinch as if she slapped me.
“I never…”
“Oh, spare me the wounded act.” Her voice drops, dripping venom. “You think you’re better than me? Because you bake muffins with his kid and show up with coffee like you’re some domestic goddess? Cute.”
I clutch my coffee cup. My throat burns.
“I’m not doing this,” I say, backing away. My voice shakes, but I hold her gaze. “You don’t get to show up like some rejected villain and rewrite my story.”
She doesn’t flinch.
She just smiles, triumphant. Poisoned honey.
“You already lost,” she calls as I turn away. “You just don’t know it yet. He will pick me because he always does. Why do youthink he’s still in Coyote Glen? He’s just been waiting for me to come back to my home town, to reclaim him.”
I don’t turn around.
I don’t give her the satisfaction.
But my steps are frantic now, gravel crunching loud as bones underfoot, and every breath scrapes against my ribs might as well be broken glass. The coffee cup in my hand trembles, forgotten.
By the time I reach the street, my hands are numb. My pulse is a roar in my ears.
I don't cry.
I won’t cry.
But something inside me is breaking.
