Share

Chapter 2

Author: Bernice
last update Last Updated: 2025-06-24 03:35:06

Shane's POV

I remembered her name. Lucy. She had told me at the party and it stuck. That was the only reasonable thing I did other than standing like an idiot while her picture was being taken.

My phone buzzed from somewhere in the room. I didn’t move. My brain felt like it was wading through fog laced with static.

What the hell happened last night? Did I force her? Had I done the worst?

I shut the door and leaned against it, then started to rub my face hard enough for it to hurt. I could still taste the wine. It was bitter and off, like it had been laced with something metallic. I remembered drinking it with her at the bar. I remembered laughing.

And then…

Nothing.

Not how we got here. Not if anything happened. Just her in my bed, and this dull throb in my skull that hadn’t let go since sunrise.

The buzz came again. This time from the table. My phone lit up with messages. Dozens of them.

I opened the first notification:

TMZ: “Unknown Woman Leaves Shane Wilson’s Suite in Last Night’s Dress — Billionaire’s Wild Morning Surprise!”

Another:

Page Six: “Tech God’s New Flame: Who Is She?”

And then…

#GoldDiggerLucy

#ShaneScandal

#MysterySuiteGirl

Lucy’s name was trending. The internet had already found her. Someone had pulled a still of her face from the chaos outside and the vultures did the rest. A college internship profile. An old high school cheer photo. A blurry pic of her leaving the hotel with her head down, looking like the poster child for humiliation.

Jesus.

The guilt hit me like a punch.

“Nice headlines,” Dwayne’s voice said behind me.

Dwayne was my step brother and a devil incarnate. He prevented me from ever having a moment to myself.

All of this seemed to be part of his strategy to me.

I looked around. With his phone and coffee in one hand, he stood at the doorway as if he owned it. No knock. Just smug timing.

He raised an eyebrow and stepped further inside. “Didn’t know you were entertaining last night. She’s cute. Kinda... messy. But that’s your thing lately, right?”

I ignored him and poured water into a glass. My hands were still unsteady.

Dwayne took a sip of his drink and nodded toward the phone. “They’re ripping her apart online. People are calling her everything but innocent. Sucks, man. For you too.”

I looked up. “You think this helps me?”

He shrugged, like it wasn’t his problem. “It’s messy. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s time to clean house. Restructure your image. These things have a way of...redirecting public attention.”

I narrowed my eyes.

He just smiled. “Bad press can be...strategic. With the IPO coming, drama sells.”

“Get out.”

His smirk faltered. “I’m just saying…”

“Now, Dwayne.”

He held up his hands like I’d hurt his feelings, then strolled out slowly, finishing his coffee like we hadn’t just shared a wall of suspicion between us.

I waited until the door clicked shut before pulling up my secure line.

“Eli,” I said the second he picked up. “I need everything. Hotel hallway footage. Private security feeds. I want to know who had access to the room, to the wine, to the press. Someone staged this.”

“You think she was in on it?”

“I don’t know,” I said tightly. “That’s why I need you.”

Eli was the best PI I’d ever hired. If someone planted something, he’d find it. And if someone had used me or her as a pawn, he’d burn the entire plan to the ground.

I hung up and dropped onto the couch, scrolling through the chaos again.

A photo of Lucy with her eyes half-closed, her shoulders bare and looking panicked, was used on almost every news outlet. They were accusing her of being a gold-digger, a social climber, a one-night stand who had foxtrotted her way onto the world stage.

She wasn’t built for this. You could see it in the way she looked directly at the cameras, stunned. Most people in her position would’ve hidden. She hadn’t even known to flinch.

And then it hit me…

She had no idea this was coming.

None.

I’d seen enough setups to spot one when I was in the middle of it.

This wasn’t a fling-gone-wrong. This was a trap.

And Lucy got caught in it right alongside me.

I ran a search. It didn’t take long to find her. Her digital footprint was small, mostly academic stuff, one internship at a publishing firm, tagged photos with a friend named Melissa, and a cheap apartment in Brooklyn. Nothing that screamed scandal. Nothing that deserved this circus.

I grabbed the key, stood up and wore a clean shirt.

If someone had set me up, fine. But they made the mistake of dragging her into it.

And I don’t let people burn on my behalf.

~

Her apartment building looked like it hadn’t seen renovation since the eighties with cracked steps, rusted railing, paint flaking from every surface. The kind of place people walked past fast.

I buzzed 3B.

I got no reply.

I hit it again.

Still nothing.

A female wearing a hoodie snuck out with headphones in her ear when the side door creaked open just as I was ready to go. It wasn't until she caught me in her corner and paused in her tracks that she looked up.

It was her.

Lucy.

She looked like she had just seen a ghost. My heart raced as her dark eyes stared into mine.

Her red hair made me dreamy of the sun.

I took a step forward. “Lucy…”

Her expression shifted instantly from shock to rage.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she snapped. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I came to talk…”

“You should’ve thought of that before you let me walk into a wall of flashing lights like your morning entertainment.”

“I didn’t know they’d be there.”

“Right,” she scoffed. “And I suppose you didn’t know they’d find my name, my face, my job, my friends…”

“I didn’t.”

Her eyes were glassy now, furious and humiliated. “You know what they’re calling me? A gold-digger. A slut. They’re tearing me apart. I don’t have a team of lawyers or PR people. I have student loans and frozen pizza and a roommate who’s now afraid to go outside.”

“I’m sorry.”

She laughed once. It was sharp, angry. “You’re sorry? Is that supposed to fix this?”

“No,” I said. “But maybe the truth will.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What truth?”

I took a breath. “I think someone set us up.”

She froze.

And for the first time…she really looked at me.

Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Comments (2)
goodnovel comment avatar
Beeluv
I can feel Lucy's rage lol
goodnovel comment avatar
Risa Mint
I wonder who set them up.
VIEW ALL COMMENTS

Latest chapter

  • The Billionaires Game    Chapter 263

    SHANE'S POV:Henrique stumbled backward, his expensive shoes scuffling against plush carpet. Catching his balance against the wall, his chest heaved. For the first time, the mask of the untouchable Don had cracked, shattering into a thousand pieces on my office floor.For several long moments, the only sound was the hard sound of our breathing.Caleb stood beside the door, his hand still near his holster.Henrique looked at me. There was nothing in his eyes now of the pomposity of a crime lord. He stared at me with the wearied clouded eyes of an old man who had met a wall he couldn't bully his way through.He stooped, with audible cracking in the joints, and reached for his cane. He dusted it off with a shaking hand."You have fire," Henrique breathed. The venom was gone from his voice now, his words low and gravelly. "I haven't seen fire like that since… since I was your age.""This is about boundaries,” I said, straightening my suit jacket, and my heart was still hammering a war dru

  • The Billionaires Game    Chapter 262

    SHANE’S POVSilence lay thick between us, tensed to the breaking point like a wire about to snap. The air-conditioning hummed, the only sound in a room suddenly too small for the two egos crammed into it.Caleb followed him inside, closing the door soundlessly and standing with his back against it, a quiet guard. Henrique didn’t notice him, chatting with us as if we were meeting for a cup of tea.“You’ve done well for yourself,” Henrique said, gesturing with his cane toward the city below.“Respectable. It’s clean. Lucy always wanted a clean city.”“State your business,” I said. Even my words were monotone, devoid of any hooks for a conversational lifeline.Henrique pulled out the chair directly across from my desk. He didn’t even wait for permission to sit—just lowered himself into it with a deliberate slowness that belied a man who owned the space around him.“Cold,” Henrique pondered, placing his cane across his lap. “I like that,” he mused. “A man who runs an empire must be cold,”

  • The Billionaires Game    Chapter 261

    SHANE’S POVThe air inside the house had altered. I watched Lucy run into our bedroom and heard the lock click shut behind her. Lucy is safe, and I can get my work done.I went to the window in the hall, making sure to conceal myself behind the thick curtains. I peered out through the slit.The black car remained, parked like a vulture patiently awaiting carrion.My phone vibrated with an incoming message. It was my head of security, Caleb.“Sir,” Caleb’s voice was tight with urgency, “we’ve got visuals on the car. There is only one vehicle and three persons inside. The registration is tied to a shell corporation in Nevada. It’s clean, but it definitely screams ‘professional.’”“Is he doing anything?” I asked.“Just sitting there. Watching the house.”“Let him watch,” I said, my jaw clenching with anger. “If he sets one foot on the property, you take him out. Do you understand? Lethal force is authorized.”“Yes, sir.”The car lingered for ten more minutes. Then, I opened the window an

  • The Billionaires Game    Chapter 260

    LUCY'S POV“He's what? How?” Shane's calm yet confused voice threw the questions around.He noticed my shaken hands and touched them. “Talk to me, Lucy. What's his name?”My eyes met his and I hated my father again for showing up. He could have remained buried in jail for all eternity. “Henry Ludien. But he's known as Don Henrique.”Shane frowned, a confused look on his face. He recognized the name. All people in both the legitimate and illegitimate worlds knew the stories about the old family.“The drug kingpin?” Shane repeated, his voice perilously low. “The one who controlled the whole supply chain on the East Coast in the nineties?”“Yes,” I sobbed. “He has been in maximum-security federal prison for eighteen years. He was sentenced to life. I don’t understand how he is out. I don’t understand!”“Eighteen years,” Shane repeated, his mind racing. “He must have made a deal. Or someone called in a favor.”“He texted me,” I said, nodding toward my phone, which lay dead against the wal

  • The Billionaires Game    Chapter 259

    LUCY’S POVMy bloodstream turned cold. The phone I was holding felt like an ice cube, burning my skin. The words on the phone screen refused to fade. The text sat there, pulsating eerily with ill intent, taunting my belief in my own security.I am coming to claim what's mine.The quiet in the living room had seemed peaceful before, but now it was oppressive. The darkness in the corners seemed to be growing and shifting.Another vibration.Unknown Number: Get on the third floor. Come to the balcony.I shouldn’t have gotten up. All the logic in the world was telling me to stay where I was, to call the police, to scream loudly enough for the guards. But fear, the puppet master, had other ideas. I stood up, my legs shaking so much I had to hold onto the side of the armchair.“Mommy?” Aria called in a small, faraway voice. “Where are you going?”I turned to look at them. My beautiful, innocent children sat under the soft blue glow of the television. They were safe there. “Stay here, baby,

  • The Billionaires Game    Chapter 258

    LUCY'S POV"Again?" I laughed. "You had that two days ago."He nodded vigorously. "The one with the little corn inside."He meant the Chinese-style chicken stew I made sometimes, which was mild, savory, and had baby corn and potatoes in it. It was his absolute favorite."Okay," I said, standing up and picking him up. He wrapped his little legs around my waist. "Rice and chicken stew it is. But you have to help me.""I’lll help!" he cheered.We entered the kitchen. It was a large, modern kitchen with marble countertops, but at this moment it felt cozy. I set Ethan down on his special stool near the sink."First, we wash our hands," I said.He soaped up his hands, making way too many bubbles, but I just laughed and helped him rinse them.I took out the chicken from the fridge and started to chop up the vegetables."Can I wash the baby corn?" Ethan asked, reaching for the bag."Yes, but be gentle," I said, handing him a small colander.He was very serious about the job at hand. He washed

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status