The CEO's Rose

Gwendolyn ’s POV

Gwendolyn had done it, she had killed a man, and she was the only one aware of that fact. Not only that, despite her poking and prodding at him many times, she had somehow managed to get away from Ryan Terrell without even once feeling the full extent of his wrath. It was a feat that was more impressive than the whole getting away with murder thing.

Ideally, she would have liked for Vivian Rose to be dead. But she was consoling herself with the fact that Vivian Rose had at least suffered a little bit. She had been choked out by her ex boyfriend after all. It might not have been the victory that she had wanted, but at the end of it all, Gwendolyn had come out a winner.

When she had seen Ryan’s people coming she had made a run for it and had managed to get out of the country. Something that her father had greatly approved of when she had reached out to tell him that she was gone and would not be coming back. For her, what made her exit even better was something that she had not considered before.

She had left Ryan.

The whole time, he’d acted like he had no use for her, that the preschool teacher was all that he needed. But in the end he had still been coming after her, and she’d left him in the dust.

She had discarded him, not the other way around.

Thanks to her ditching him, she was certain that he was probably obsessing over her, not paying any attention to Vivian Rose at all.

That made her very happy.

***

Readjusting her hands behind her head, Gwendolyn, completely naked, lay stretched about on the beach. The sun doing his work and making sure to give her a natural full body tan. She was just about to turn over so that her back would get the same treatment when a shadow fell over her. Thinking that a cloud had come out of nowhere. Gwendolyn opened her eyes to glare at the sky, but instead she found herself giving the stink eye to another woman.

"Gwendolyn? Gwendolyn Stuart the fourth. Oh my goodness, it truly is you. Last I’d heard you had been disowned and were poor as dirt. I thought if I were to see you in a place like this, you’d be working as a maid, but it seems I must have misheard," The other woman finished off her toxic statement with a laugh and Gwendolyn joined her, her teeth on full display, ready to bite and draw blood if needed.

Ahh, her old frenemy, Paula Vincenzo, Gwendolyn wondered if the other woman would still be laughing if she were aware that Gwendolyn had killed a full grown man on her own without the aid of poison.

***

Gwendolyn, now in a bikini was sitting in a nearly empty restaurant with Paula for company. There was a lot of laughter and smiles coming from their table, the two of them sipping on their cocktails as they talked.

To an outsider, it might have looked friendly, but the interaction was anything but that.

"Oh, Paula, I am so glad to see you’ve lost weight after your pregnancy. I was truly worried for you. Other than those ugly stretch marks, you look good for someone who is now used goods," Paula laughed freely at that, her bleached teeth glinting in the light.

"Oh, you know, we can’t all be you. My problem is stretch marks after giving birth, yours is dealing with a significant drop in wealth after being cut off. After all, you would have been on a private beach instead of sharing with the rest of us," Gwendolyn’s laugh put even the loveliest bell to shame.

"True, everyone has their burden to bear. Tell me, did your husband cheat before or after you got a nose job?" Paula’s eyes narrowed and Gwendolyn took that as a point for herself.

"He did not cheat. We are in an open marriage. Anyways, I am on my fifth husband while you have never been married. It must be hard seeing that nobody wants to settle with you," Tch, what a pathetic comeback.

Letting the words flow over her, Gwendolyn merely shrugged and took a sip of her drink.

"It is the curse of beauty. I have far too many options,"

Paula laughed at that.

"Of course, like Ryan Terrell’s brother," Her teeth grinding, Gwendolyn forced a smile.

"The Terrell men really did throw themselves at me, didn’t they, sort of like you and all those STIs you keep getting," Paula actually snarled at that.

Gwendolyn, deciding she had won was just about to take her leave when the other woman spoke up.

"You really are strong Gwendolyn , if I were you, I would have been holed up somewhere crying my eyes out," What was the other woman talking about.

"To lose a catch like Ryan Terrell to a preschool teacher, that must have really stung. Now that they are getting married at the end of the month, it must really be weighing heavy on you,"

Something on her face must have given away the fact that she had not known that because Paula laughed way louder than she had previously been doing. The sound making her face crunch up in a way that showed laugh lines...pathetic.

Not gracing her with a response. Gwendolyn simply walked away. Doing her best to not break into a run even as she felt like her heart was about to stop.

Ryan was marrying that harlot, how could he do that to her!

***

Crash! Bam! Bam!

She had cried when she had seen the pictures of the mirror room that Ryan had destroyed. Yet as she took a bat to every mirror in her hotel room, she did not care about the destruction that she was bringing to the beautiful pieces, she was too angry to.

Only once every single mirror had been destroyed did she stop. Spinning around slowly, glass crunching beneath her flip-flops, she took in all of the cracked reflections and still all that she could see was her beauty.

But if she was still as beautiful as ever why had Ryan decided to stop seeing how gorgeous she was.

How could he get married after she had left? He was supposed to be too devastated to carry on, but he was getting married instead.

How? And why was he engaged to that plain looking woman?

Gwendolyn had helped Bryce destroy Vivian Rose online. She knew for a fact that Ryan had seen the ugly pictures that were a true representation of the woman. Gwendolyn had even manipulated Bryce into attacking his ex. Yet even after seeing her all bruised and beaten up, Ryan had chosen to marry her.

How was that even fair?!!! Gwendolyn had been fine with leaving because she’d thought that without her there to make them cling tightly to each other, Ryan would soon lose interest in Vivian Rose, but it seemed the opposite was true.

The man had decided to marry her instead. Her heart rate picking up again, Gwendolyn tried to calm herself down. Breathing deeply, she tried so very hard to let it go. But as she looked at her broken reflections and saw her beauty, her mind could not get over the fact that someone had been chosen over her.

Such a thing could not be allowed to stand.

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