Chapter 222
Without a word, I stood, teaching for the caving knife again. The room remained utterly silent as I carefully, methodically carved myself a thick slab of meat. I speared a few carrots, potatoes, and green beans too, then added those to my plate.
Then, I picked up both my plate and my wine glass, and walked out of the room.
Neither of them called out to me as I left, not that footsteps slow and even until I was out of earshot.
expected them to. I kept my head held high and my Only then did I let my chest heave.
Shifting my dishes into one hand, I picked up my skirt with the other and hurried up the stairs. I went straight to my room and quietly shut the door behind me, then locked it. I set my meal down at my table and sat, cutting the meat with forceful strokes that scraped against the plate.
I shoved a large bite of the boar into my mouth, letting the blood dribble down my chin and not caring if it got onto my dress. Chewed. Swallowed. Cut another. I didn’t finish chewing that piece before I shoved a third into my mouth, then a fourth.
Across the room, I caught a glimpse of myself in my vanity mirror. My cheeks stuffed full. My eyes red. Blood and wine dripping down the front of my dress.
Pull it together, Ellie.
I breathed deeply through my nose, chewed, then swallowed everything in one big gulp. I reached for my wine and sipped it slowly, shutting my eyes.
Pull. It. Together:
As I sat there, calming myself, a thought flickered through my mind.
This wasn’t working.
Initially, my plan had been to be the worst Luna possible. To be so awful that Dominic would have no choice but to divorce me, severing me entirely from this contract.
But clearly that wasn’t going to happen. He was just going to do the same thing he did in my past life— choose Vivian at every turn, even when all of the evidence was stacked against her. Both of them would twist everything against me every chance they had.
Then, they would knit closer and closer together until they were completely inseparable. Vivian would undermine me at every opportunity she had, and Dominic would help her.
And then…
Well, I supposed we already knew the rest of that story, didn’t we?
I thought long and hard about what to do to keep that from happening. Slowly, a realization began to snap into place.
If being awful wasn’t going to be the thing to force Dominic to let me go, then perhaps a different approach
was in order.
Perhaps, instead of being good, I had to be… perfect.
+30 Bonus
No. Itook a sip of my wine and pushed that thought away. I’d tried being perfect in my past life, and that hadn’t worked.
I had to be better than perfect. I had to be so goddamn exquisite that it would completely humiliate both Vivian and Dominic, publicly. I had to ensure that their shame was so great that they would be put in their places forever, and that they wouldn’t dare to undermine me.
The festival might be my one and only chance to ensure that
I wasn’t quite sure yet how I was going to make that work, but I knew it had to be done. That festival was going to be the best bloody festival the packs had ever seen. Everything that Vivian and Dominic attempted to plan on their own would be so completely outshone by my efforts that they would be incapable of overshadowing me again.
Then, I could initiate the divorce myself. Dominic wouldn’t have a leg to stand on anymore, and he would have no choice but to accept.
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22
