Page 35 of The Rival’s Obsession (The Black Ledger Billionaires #3)

I lift my hips—just a bit—and ease back down, repeating the motion again and again, each pass sinking me further. Until I’m there. All the way.

The stretch is intense. Full. Borderline too much.

But it feels good. So good.

I wrap my hand around my cock, already painfully hard, and stroke with the same rhythm I’ve built below. I tip my head back, jaw slack, hips rolling in time with my fist.

This. This is what I’ve been chasing. That elusive something I’ve tried to recreate a hundred times with a hundred things that never came close.

My eyes flutter shut as I start to move faster, breathless, each downward grind coaxing another sound from my throat. I can’t stay quiet. Not anymore.

The beat of the music fades into the background as I give in to the rhythm I’ve found—stroking, grinding, imagining?—

Dante. Always Dante.

His voice in my ear. His breath on my neck. The weight of him behind me.

It’s only because I envy him so much that I think about him like this. Right? How hot he is. Confident. How all the girls at school want him and all the guys want to be him.

My pace stutters.

I whisper his name.

And I don’t stop.

I don’t even hear the door open.

All I hear is the gasp.

Sharp. Wet. Like it punched the air out of her lungs.

I freeze—completely still—until my eyes lift to the mirror.

And I see her.

My mom.

Her face is pale, but her eyes—her red-rimmed eyes—are wide with shock. Tears stream down her cheeks like she’s already been crying, like she walked in on something she never imagined and still didn’t see coming.

“Oh my God,” she chokes, voice jagged with disbelief.

The door slams shut behind her like a gunshot.

And she’s gone.

“Fuck,” I breathe, the word scraping out of me like it’s got claws.

How the hell am I supposed to explain that?

That it’s not what it looked like? That I wasn’t?—

I slide off the toy too fast and wince, my whole body clenching. Still shaking. Still hard. The cold rush of panic slaps everything else away.

“Mom!” I call, voice cracking.

I grab the towel I laid out earlier—now sticky and pathetic—and throw it over the dildo, yanking the whole thing off the floor and tossing it behind me.

My shirt and shorts come next, arms fumbling through the sleeves as I hop into my clothes, not bothering with boxers.

There’s no time. I need to catch her before?—

“Mom, wait!” I shout again, but I can’t hear her over the music. I stab at my laptop to silence it, the sudden stillness ringing in my ears like an alarm that already went off too late.

I wrench the door open, tugging my shirt down as I bolt into the hallway.

“Stop, Mom!”

But the sound that stops me isn’t hers.

It’s a yelp.

Choked and terrified—then a heavy thud.

A sound I’ll never unhear. The kind of sound that empties the air from the world.

I run.

Faster than I’ve ever moved, feet pounding down the hall, using the railing to catch myself as I reach the landing.

I look over.

Expecting to see her on the stairs. Still running. Still angry.

But my eyes catch yellow.

Her sweater.

And I already know.

Before I even turn my head fully, I know.

She’s on the ground.

Crushed against the marble floor. The white stone cracked beneath her head, red bleeding out in all directions like a blooming nightmare.

Her legs are twisted wrong. Her arm—I can’t even see it. It must be pinned underneath her. But her face... her face is turned up.

Right at me.

Her eyes—brighter than mine ever were—are open. Still wide. Still shocked. Still... accusing.

“Mom.”

It barely makes it out. A whisper. Cracked in two.

Her chest jerks. Once.

Her eyelids flutter like she’s trying to stay awake.

But I see it.

The moment she stops.

The moment the light in her eyes fades just slightly. Enough to know she’s not trying anymore.

She’s gone.

“What is it, Grant?”

Corrine’s voice comes from the side hall.

I turn my head so fast I almost lose balance. She sees me—just the look on my face—and her smile drops instantly.

“What—” she starts.

But she doesn’t finish.

Her eyes follow mine. Over the railing. Down.

And the scream that comes from her splits the air in half.

It’s raw. Gut-deep. Horrified.

My dad barrels out of his study seconds later, doors slamming open so hard they bounce back on their hinges.

“What’s happened?” he shouts, voice like a blade.

His eyes scan everything—Corrine. Me. The landing.

And then he sees her.

The noise that leaves him... I’ll never forget it.

It’s not just pain—it’s undoing. A sound like someone being torn apart from the inside.

He stumbles across the foyer, dropping to his knees in the blood forming around her like a halo.

“Sylvia,” he breathes, trembling as he presses a hand to her forehead, lowering himself to her body, breaking.

“Sylvia,” he says again, and then he just sobs. Wracked, broken sobs.

I don’t move.

I should.

I should go back to my room.

I should do something—anything. I’m standing right over where she fell. Right over the edge she must’ve hit.

Then I look at Corrine again.

And the look on her face tells me everything.

She thinks I pushed her.

She doesn’t have to say it. It’s in her eyes. Wide and glassy and full of something worse than horror—belief.

Belief that I killed her.

“Corrine, I?—”

I didn’t.

I can’t even speak. I can barely breathe as tears burn hot in my eyes, and I blink to try and clear them.

I didn’t push her. But I might as well have.

If she hadn’t walked in—if she hadn’t seen what she did, the shame of it, the panic—if I’d just locked the door, or waited another hour, or?—

She wouldn’t have run.

She wouldn’t have fallen.

She wouldn’t be down there with her skull cracked open, and my dad sobbing in a puddle of her blood.

I didn’t lay a finger on her, but I still killed her.

And I don’t know how I’m going to live with that.