All Chapters of My Ex Framed Me, So I Dated His Rival: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Ivy.I finally found a place to stay after leaving Tyler's apartment.It was a boarding house, with so many women crammed inside it felt like a tin of sardines.I dragged my suitcase up three flights of cracked stairs, forcing myself not to think too much.It was only temporary.All I had to do was get back on my feet, find work, and move into a better place.For now, this was the only place I could stay without being haunted by memories of him.The building was old, and the air carried the stale smell of too many people squeezed into too little space.People barely paid rent here, and nobody asked for ID.It was perfect for a woman who had just walked out on her fake boyfriend and the entire fake dating disaster that ruined her life.A girl with purple hair looked up from the couch the moment I stepped inside. Her lips twisted into a crooked smile when she saw me.“Holy shit. Aren’t you the girl who was with that hockey player? Tyler Vane?” she asked, and I froze.“Wrong person.”She

Ivy. I sat cross-legged on the thin mattress with my burner phone, scrolling through every free job board I could find. I needed a part-time job that paid well in cash with no questions asked. Anything that would keep me from starving or getting kicked out of this place. I knew that Lila had already covered my rent, but I still had to earn enough for the next payment. Lila was on the couch again, her purple hair in a messy bun, watching me without pretending she wasn’t. “You are going to burn a hole in that screen,” she said, looking concerned for the very first time. “I need work. Rent is coming, and food’s already a problem. I can’t keep taking your bread.” She didn’t smile. Instead, she took a deep breath and sighed. “I told you not to make it a habit. It doesn’t mean I want you to collapse.” I kept scrolling, ignoring her. It was easy for her to

Ivy.I barely made it through the front door of the shared house before my legs gave out.I sank onto the thin mattress, my suitcase still beside me, and the sob tore out of my chest before I could stop it.I was cursed.I could swear that I was, because nothing was working out for me.Lila locked the door behind us and stood over me with her arms crossed. I was sad that I had to put someone I just met through all of this.She wasn't even my sister, nor was she my relative, yet she stayed with me through this as if we had known each other for years.“I need to be honest with you, Ivy. You need to separate your emotions from the job. Money is money. You turned down the only lead we had because of an ex who might not give a shit about you.“Work the job and get paid. We need to survive. You need to survive. No one is coming to save you.”“I can’t,” I choked. “I can’t be around him. You don’t understand what he’s like. You will never understand what I went through because of him.”“Then

Tyler. I had spent two weeks tearing the town apart looking for Ivy. I could feel everything that she felt, and every time I slept, it felt like Nyx was calling my wolf. And my own wolf always answered with a constant, low snarl that kept me from sleeping. Finding the burner number had taken longer than it should have. I had to use a lot of resources to get a quiet favor from a tech guy. When the digits finally lit up my private screen, I stared at them for a full minute before I did the only thing that made sense. I transferred a hundred thousand dollars to her from an anonymous account. It was enough to keep her from starving or crawling back to Noah’s warehouse. Then I got in the car and drove straight to the shared house where she was staying. All this information had been given to me by someone I paid to search for her. --- The shared house sat on a street that smelled terrible. I wondered how she could stay there. The door was already unlocked, and hal

Tyler.Another argument with Ivy? I couldn't deal with it.I left her and stepped out of the hotel’s side entrance just after midnight, needing air and a little privacy to think.It felt like everything I was doing was wrong.I apologized to her, I took her here to have the best time of her life, and yet, it felt like things weren't working yet.“I don't even know what to do,” I exhaled.My wolf was restless.It was still wound up from kneeling in front of Ivy.While I was still trying to think about other possible ways to make things better between Ivy and me, Van showed up.I didn't know that he was here all this while.Van leaned against the hood of a black car three spaces over with his arms crossed as if he had been waiting for hours.“Comfortable now?” he called. “Got the girl upstairs in a nice suite with flowers on a private floor. It almost looks like you know how to take care of something instead of just destroying it.”I stopped walking and refused to look in his direction.