Chapter 6
The Holt empire was massive. The kind of old money that could crush competitors with a bored sigh and still have time for brunch in the Hamptons.
But with great power came great dysfunction.
The family tree was a tangled jungle of infighting and backstabbing. The cousins, the stepkids, the hanger-ons—they all hated me.
Why? Easy. I was the help’s daughter, turned pampered princess overnight. Too low-born to be one of them, too close to the throne for comfort.
So they took it out on me in every way they could. Tripping me at gala rehearsals. “Accidentally” spilling wine on my dresses. Whispering rumors that made me feel like dirt.
I didn’t fight back. Not because I couldn’t. Because I didn’t want to make things worse.
It wasn’t until Landon found bruises on my arms that things changed.
He and Logan lost their damn minds.
They broke some cousin’s nose, nearly got disowned, and made one thing very clear to the rest of the family:
You touch Savannah Summers, you die.
From then on, I was off-limits.
So yeah, Logan was right—he couldn’t imagine me falling for someone who used to treat me like garbage.
But that was the thing about these floating comments.
They didn’t care about logic.
“Ugh, what’s she even doing? Is this some reverse-psych shit? Playing hard to get now?”
“Pathetic. Thinks making the boys jealous will win her sympathy. Spoiler: it won’t.”
“Y’all ever notice how y’all bash her no matter what she does?”
“Like pick the guy, she’s a snake. Don’t pick the guy, she’s a tease. Maybe y’all are just bitter.”
“If she really doesn’t want either twin… maybe she’s looking at our demon uncle ”
“He heard her say she likes someone else and now he’s like TIME TO SHOOT MY SHOT.”
“He’s been in love with her since forever. Just never said it ‘cause she’s younger and technically his nephews’ girl.”
“Otherwise she wouldn’t be dying on a hospital bed—she’d be dead from multiple orgasms.”
I blinked. What the hell?
Had I just gotten… fan support? In this dumpster fire of a narrative?
But then the comments took a left turn straight into NSFW land.
Hunter Holt.
Uncle Hunter.
The man who always watched from the shadows with whiskey in hand and a face carved from sin.
He liked me?
No freaking way.
I turned my head slowly.
And there he was.
Sitting in a leather armchair in the corner of the room like a goddamn Bond villain, legs crossed, eyes dark and unreadable—but burning. Hot. Uncontainably hot.
There was something violent in the way he looked at me. Like he was holding back a wildfire with nothing but willpower and a prayer.
