The Tycoon’s Wild Card

Trish’s POV: The sight that awaited me in what was supposed to be my matrimonial bedroom—in just three days time—was… shocking, to say the least. Declan took his precious time untangling his naked self from an equally naked Evelyn Trimble, daughter of CEO Morgan Trimble, owner of Trimble Corp, one of the biggest fashion brands in the company, and my… best friend. I took one shaky step into the room, not caring that the wine I’d brought with me had long since escaped my grip and had shattered on the rugged floor of my bedroom. Our bedroom. “W… wha… Declan?” My voice came out in choked whispers. “What’s going on?” The wicked grin that formed on my best friend’s face told me all that I needed to know, but I could not believe. I did not want to believe it. It couldn’t be, not my Declan. It was impossible, we love each other. Declan’s silence was deafening, it made my heart shatter into a million pieces, and the fact that he had a very… unconcerned look on his face, after just getting caught f*****g his fiancee’s best friend, made me feel dizzy. “Talk to me, love. Has she done something to you?” I asked, turning to look at Evelyn who sat, unashamed, with her back to the frame of the bed. The bite marks on her neck and small breasts were proof of exactly what had happened in this room. “What have you done, Evelyn?” Evelyn had the nerve to bat her eyelashes at me. “Oh, don’t look so upset, Trish. I’ve done nothing that you haven’t.” “Evelyn…” I sounded so defeated, so broken, as I fell to my knees at the edge of the bed, realization hitting me like a heavy punch to the gut. Maybe it was how empty I sounded, maybe it was because he thought I was going to collapse, maybe it was because Evelyn had used some sort of spell on him and seeing me the way that I had, managed to get to him, but before Declan made to move as my knees hit the ground, he was restrained by Evelyn. “You do remember what you did, don’t you Trish?” Oh, I remember. “E… Evelyn, I didn’t know… I told you, I begged you. How could you do this?” The tears started to pour then as I remember exactly why Evelyn did what she had. Five years ago, when we’d been in college, I had made the very grave mistake of sleeping with my best friend’s lover. The truth of the matter was that she had told me several times, that she had someone she was seeing. I’d pleaded with her on several occasions to introduce me to him or even show a picture, but she’d turned me down at every turn, despite the fact that she knew every single guy I was seeing. She said she wanted it to be a big surprise. It had indeed been a big surprise, the day that Evelyn returned from class to find me having s*x with rich playboy, Luke, on our living room couch. I’d been baffled when she came in and stood frozen at the door. It wasn’t the first time she’d walk in on me having s*x, usually she’d give a halfhearted scolding like: “You have a room of your own, Trish.”, or “What will your father say if he finds you like this?” Before making her way to her own room, but that day she said nothing, she just stood there, unblinking for a while until she finally said: “You couldn’t even let me have this one, could you, Latricia?” Turns out, Luke, was her big surprise, and according to Luke, they hadn’t been dating, but that didn’t matter. I spent the next couple of weeks trying to make it up to Evelyn, but it was difficult and even when things finally cooled down, I could tell something was fractured in our friendship. I wiped at my tears and only at the furrowing of Evelyn’s brows did I realize that I’d been cut by a shard of the wine glass that broke, when my palm hit the rug. I hadn’t even felt it. “You should get that treated,” Declan said coldly. A scoff escaped me as I pulled myself to my feet. “What do you care?” “You’re right, I don’t. But I’d rather not have you pass out in my house due to blood loss.” I let out a genuine laugh at that. “Your house, Declan?” I took a menacing step forward but they were unbothered. “I bought this house, it is mine. You can take your slut somewhere else.” Evelyn scoffed at that but the smile remained, and when a smirk appeared on Declan’s face, I knew that something was terribly wrong, and that it just wasn’t the fact that my engagement of almost two years had just ended. “If I recall properly, Latricia,” Declan hadn’t needed to complete his sentence, I knew what was coming, and my heart sank to my stomach. “...along with your shares of White Corp, you handed this house to me.” He got to his feet and moved to stand directly in front of me, making me feel as small as a prey that had been cornered by a predator. “So yes, this is my house now, and the only slut who’ll be leaving is you.” Blood pounded in my ears and my vision swayed. There was throbbing in my right hand, I could feel it but I did not dare look at it. I kept my eyes fixed on Declan’s dark eyes, praying to whatever God would hear me, that this was just a dream, a nightmare that I’d wake up from. I prayed, because if this were real, then I would be ruined. My father, he… he would say that he warned me, he would disown me and I would be left with nothing to my name, and absolutely nowhere to go. I did not feel myself fall, infact I felt nothing, I heard nothing. I simply stopped breathing.