Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
I snapped a few photos before slipping out of the office and turning the cameras back on before I plopped down on the couch, stomach in knots as I pretended to watch a home design show on HGTV. I was smiling because I could feel my freedom inching closer.
“What are you smiling about?” Nathan asked when he joined me.
“My birthday,” I said lightly. “It’s just going to be so fun, this big party full of people. Such a wonderful celebration.”
Something flickered in his eyes, one brow ticking up as he watched me like he wasn’t sure he could believe me. I kept my smile in place, my eyes soft.
“It will be a lovely party,” he said finally, taking a seat next to me. He pulled out his phone immediately, scrolling through it. “You’re going to love it.”
And I knew I would.
But not for the reasons he thought.
“Looks like our cameras cut out for a bit,” he mused with furrowed brows.
“I think the Internet was on the fritz,” I offered with a shrug, eyes still on the TV. “We lost streaming, too.”
The next few days were a blur of decorations and fake normalcy.
I confirmed the catering. I double-checked the guest list. I listened while Nathan talked about which executives would be there, who mattered, who I needed to charm. I nodded when he reminded me — again — how important it was that everything go perfectly.
“We only get one chance to make the right impression with our new team, and this is a big part of our first year,” he told me the night before the party. “I need you focused. No disappearing. No silly girl hangouts like you had at the Gala.”
I met his eyes. “Of course.”
That night, after he was asleep, I locked myself in our bathroom and copied the ledger files from his email onto my burner phone. My reflection stared back at me in the mirror when I was through — and I was the perfect picture of calm composure, my appearance betraying the unsteady waters inside me.
You are not trapped, I told the woman staring back at me. Not anymore.
I thought about the scar on my hand, the one my stepfather had inflicted on me at such a young age I could never forget it. He’d stayed with me my entire life, not by choice, but because he’d marked me in a way I couldn’t erase. And I thought about the way Nathan had grabbed me and then acted like it was nothing, like his hand bruising my wrist was deserved.
I thought about birthday candles, about Christmas lights, about how long I’d been shrinking myself to keep the peace.
And about how I was about to be the storm that disrupted everything, the hurricane Nathan would never see coming.
The evening of the party, I stood in front of that same mirror and adjusted my dress, my pulse steady for the first time in weeks.
I looked exactly like the woman Nathan believed he controlled.
But I wasn’t her anymore.
This was survival. This was strategy. This was weeks of careful planning coming to fruition.
Tonight, he would be exposed. Tonight, every threat he’d ever made would come back to bite him. Tonight, the man who thought he owned me would learn what it meant to underestimate the woman standing beside him.
I smoothed my hands over my stomach and met my own eyes.
Happy birthday, Ariana.
It was time.
Smile
Ariana
Present
My birthday had always been a point of contention in my life.
How could it not be, when you’re born on Christmas Eve? My mother always said it was the best Christmas gift she ever had — or at least, she said it when I was young, before the light in her eyes was snuffed out. The older I got, the more I realized my birthday was the worst day ever. We never truly celebrated it. I was lucky if I got a birthday cake after our Christmas Eve dinner, and usually, my birthday and Christmas gift was one and the same.
“It was expensive,” Mom would say. “So it counts for both your birthday and Christmas.”
“You’re lucky to get anything at all,” Jay would chime in once he was in the picture. “Do you know how many kids wake up to no presents?”
I’d learned to live with it. And honestly, I’d grown numb to wanting anything more as I got older. The first birthday I spent with Nathan, he took me out for a nice dinner and bought me a beautiful diamond tennis bracelet. He always made sure I had a gift after that, but the celebration was subpar — a dinner, usually, or sometimes a breakfast if we had a holiday party to attend with his colleagues. That happened more often than not.
I was used to spending my birthday with other people celebrating a completely different holiday.