Chapter 5 The Ex With A Score To Settle

Selina had always believed her past was messy. But now, it felt like someone else's soap opera-a bad one with better lighting. And she was no longer just the lead. She was the main target. Two days after meeting Dax, her face was everywhere again-websites, gossip columns, late-night talk shows. Only this time, it wasn't just a scandal. It was a storyline. "Selina Monroe: The Actress Who Trapped the Twins?" The smear was calculated. Strategic. And it wasn't coming from Dax. It was coming from someone who knew them both.

"You're being played," Darian said over the phone, his voice clipped with frustration. "This leak-it's not from me. It's from her." "Her who?" Selina asked, but she already knew. "Juliette," he confirmed. "Our ex-stepmother." Selina's stomach dropped. The woman in the photos... the one on the phone... the one smiling like she'd waited years for this- "She was married to your father," Selina whispered. "She's family?" "Not anymore," Darian said coldly. "She left the day after his funeral. But not before emptying half his offshore accounts." Selina blinked. "She robbed you?" "She robbed the legacy," he snapped. "And now she wants to destroy what's left of it. Starting with you." The line went dead. Selina stared at the sapphire pendant Dax had given her, its single glittering eye staring back like a warning. She hadn't worn it. Not yet. Not until she knew who she could trust. Juliette hadn't spoken to the media-not directly. But she didn't need to. Her fingerprints were all over the headlines. And the attacks were getting personal. Her acting history. Her childhood in foster care. Her first arrest at seventeen for stealing groceries. All of it. Dug up. Weaponized. She tried to vanish again, to pull away from both brothers. But Dax wasn't done with her. "Come with me," he said, showing up outside her apartment at midnight. "Just for a few days." "Why?" she asked, clutching her coat. "Because if she's playing chess," he said, "then I want to move the queen." She didn't ask where they were going. She just followed. They landed in Santorini at sunrise. A private villa. High above the cliffs. Endless white and blue. Selina had never seen anything like it. "Why here?" she asked, breathless from beauty and jet lag . "Because it's the one place no one would look for me," he said, tossing his phone into the ocean. "And what happens here?" Dax turned to her, his eyes less playful now. Less smug. "Here," he said, "you tell me the truth." Selina looked down at her hands. "About what?" "About whether part of you wanted this," he said. "Not the baby. The fame. The chaos. Us." She blinked, stung. "I never wanted a circus," she said. "I wanted a chance to stop surviving." He stepped closer. "And now that you've got two cute billionaires fighting over you and a child that could belong to either... are you still surviving?" Tears welled in her eyes. "I don't know anymore." He reached out. But she stepped back. "I need to know who the father is," she said. "I need to know." He nodded slowly. "Then let's find out." She looked up sharply. "You'd do a test?" He gave a dry smile. "What's scarier-knowing the truth, or lying to both of us?" Before she could answer, the doorbell rang. She frowned. "Did you tell anyone we were coming?" "No." Selina opened the door- -and standing there, in a white linen suit and sunglasses, was Juliette St. James. "I brought breakfast," she purred. "And a little truth of my own."