Gwendolyn’s POV

Say what you would, but when Gwendolyn Stuart the fourth, played with people, she knew exactly what she was doing. How far to push them and when to back off. Being a master manipulator might have seemed easy from the outside, but it was actually very difficult and also insanely rewarding when done right.

Toying with the Terrell brothers had been loads of fun, at least until Brian had gone and died right after his older brother had found out about their affair. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

The only thing that Gwendolyn had been able to do back then was to leave the city. Setting up a new long-term goal, to come back for Ryan later, instead of devouring him whole like she had wanted to do back then.

She had not liked it at all, pausing her games when she was having fun had always made her mad. But had she not gotten out of sight, she would have risked Ryan hating her for real due to constantly seeing her and being reminded of his brother.

Now four years had passed and she was back to reclaim what was hers.

It should have been as easy as her showing up that first day and then making sure that they kept running into each other. Every encounter dredging up all of the pain, the hurt, the lust, the love that held her and Ryan together like an unbreakable thread.

After making sure that he constantly saw her, Gwendolyn would have then made sure to bring up their shared past. Expressing her pain, her regret in how things had gone down. Ryan should have wanted to reach for her then. The two of them working through that dark time with Ryan’s heart a bleeding mess that was all thorns and shards that only Gwendolyn could touch.

A broken, bleeding, perfect thing.

But that was not how things were going, Ryan was not leaning into her as he should have been. Instead he was actively ignoring her. No matter what she did, he just would not react.

***

For things to be progressing the way that they were between them...which was not at all. There was only one reason that Gwendolyn could think of that would be behind it all.

There was someone else in the picture.

It was the most obvious reason, and yet Gwendolyn was struggling to believe it. Despite having been gone for four years, she had kept tabs on Ryan Terrell. Every newspaper article every scandal. Whatever the media had to say about him, Gwendolyn had made sure to know.

Instead of being dependable Ryan Terrell like he had been when she had met him. The man had become known as the billionaire playboy Ryan Terrell. Sleeping with anything that batted its eyelids at him and stuck their cleavage out for him to see.

That was the man that she had created, all of those women, those flings, had served to make Gwendolyn more secure about her place in Ryan’s heart. Seeing every picture had reassured her that she had hurt him so good that he wasn’t able to let another in.

That when she did come back there would still be a space for her in his life. His pain was supposed to be her ticket back into his heart. But instead of welcoming her back, and accepting her as a poison that was also his cure, Ryan Terrell was not playing ball. He was holding firm in his decision not to see her again. The only way that could happen would be if his heart were shifting, making space for someone else.

But who could it be? Gwendolyn had not heard news of some other heiress trying to encroach in on her property. There was no actress, no businesswoman trying to sink her claws into Ryan Terrell.

Could it be a supermodel?...No, if there really was somebody there would have already been reports all over the place. All of her frenemies would have been reaching out, just dying to let her know.

Not only that, Ryan’s many, many flings had always been public knowledge, surely if there was someone now it would not be a secret, Gwendolyn would be well aware if she had a competitor.

***

There was of course another reason why Ryan could be proving to be so resistant to her this time around. Perhaps that pesky heart of his was somehow still holding on to the pain of losing his brother.

That made no sense to Gwendolyn, she had lost her own mother as a young girl, and had never even grieved nor missed the woman. So she had no idea if that could be the case.

But Ryan had always been an emotional man despite trying to pass himself off as somebody not easily moved by their feelings. Maybe that could really be it, if he was ignoring her because he thought that in some twisted way he was honoring his brother’s memory then Gwendolyn could find ways around that. She could twist that brotherly loyalty into something that she could use. Something that would allow her to slither back into his heart.

It would be difficult, but she was sure she could do it. After all, she had done the same to Brian and in the end he had caved and slept with her. Surely Ryan would also fall for the same thing. But before she set a plan in motion for that, Gwendolyn had to make sure that there really was no one else. To do that she was going to show up in front of Ryan Terrell in her most devastating attire. If that man took one look at her looking drop dead gorgeous and there was not even a stirring in his eyes, no sign that he wanted a piece of her. Then Gwendolyn would know that there really was somebody and to get to her Ryan, she would cut the other woman down, and wear her skin like a pair of leather boots.

No one touched what belonged to Gwendolyn, no one.