Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 161

Chapter 161 Custom Built

Finished

Yue glared down at Mandy, furious and aching at the same time. “Stop crying. Maybe tonight was good for you. Remember how it felt. How many times have I told you to leave Nora alone, and you never listen.

“Pull another stunt like this and I’ll hit you myself.”

Mandy still didn’t believe she had done anything wrong. Adrian wanted space, Victor had beaten her, Yvette was yelling at her, and all of it came out in one long wail.

The harder she cried, the more she hated Nora, because all of tonight traced back to her.

If Adrian really ended things, she would do what she had done in her last life and kill Nora all over again.

Yvette watched her cry and went soft, patting her back. “That’s enough. I’ll find a way to fix it. None of this is as big as it feels right now.”

Yvette looked at her, then at the welt the belt had left on her, and her face hardened. “And if it comes to that, I’ll take care of Nora for you.”

Taking care of Nora meant making her disappear. Nothing was going to stand in Mandy’s way.

In the car, Victor turned to Kendra. “Where is he?”

She kept her eyes on the road. “The Ivory Club.”

“How do you know that?” Victor looked over at her. He had made a dozen calls and not one person would tell him where Kirby was.

“He left me his card a while back. He likes women.” She changed lanes without slowing down. “At this hour, as long as I didn’t bring up work, he was happy to tell me where he was.”

Victor looked at her from the passenger seat. She wasn’t beautiful exactly, but something about her held his eye. The suit was sharp, and the shirt under it sat open at the collar.

Kendra’s blouse strained at the buttons.

Victor was a man like any other, and he looked a beat too long before he made himself turn away.

He still remembered what he had promised Yvette 20 years ago. One woman for the rest of his life, one daughter, and that daughter was Mandy. He couldn’t do that to her.

Nora had been driving home when Ryder’s message came in, and she had turned around for the Ivory Club.

She stood at the window of a private room on the second floor, where every booth on the ground floor was in plain view.

Victor came in with Kendra and crossed to Booth 9, tucked into a corner where nobody would look twice.

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Chapter 161 Custom Built

# Finished

He reached the table all smiles, practically bent in half over Kirby’s hand, and took the seat across from him. Kendra sat down beside Kirby.

“So How’s the setup?” Ryder had come up beside Nora, already waiting for his credit.

Nora looked over at him. The loud print shirt made him look even more like the rich troublemaker he was. “This place is yours?”

Ryder nodded. “We’ve wanted a foothold in this city for a couple of years now. The Ivory was one of the pieces, so I took it over.” He had owned it for all of a few days, and only so he would have a reason to stay.

Ryder pointed down at Kendra. “She’s not a knockout, I know. But she’s got something. She’s good at business, she’s got the degrees, and for a man like your father she’s impossible to resist.”

Victor liked educated women who were capable, soft-spoken, and curvy.

For 20 years he had been managed by Yvette, who never went past high school, and even without a son he had never once stepped out on her.

So Ryder had picked Kendra with Victor in mind and placed her in the Sinclair Group as a secretary. Tonight was a setup too, the kind that ended with a man making a mistake.

“It’s safe?” Nora asked.

Ryder looked wounded. “I handled it myself and you’re still asking? It’s airtight. Her whole background is built to hold up.

“Right now she’s a secretary. In a few months she’s the Ashford heiress. Young, beautiful, rich. Your father will lose his head, and he’ll pay any price to marry her.”

Nora gave him a look of real approval. “Not bad. Better than what I had in mind.”

Her version had been simpler. Hire a pretty stranger, get Victor into bed with her, and let Yvette catch the two of them. Or let that stranger turn up pregnant with a son so he could believe he finally had an heir.

Either way, the trust those two had built on one shared secret would crack, and she could stand back, watch them turn on each other, and take them down one at a time.

Ryder’s version was better. A beautiful, wealthy woman who adored him was exactly the bait Victor would chase, and a man who put money and his own future above everything else would stop at nothing to get

her.

By then, it wouldn’t be infighting anymore. He and Yvette would tear each other apart.

Nora turned to Ryder. “Build one for Yvette too.”

She had asked around among the staff at the Sinclair house. Victor and Yvette had been polite roommates for years, and whatever marriage they had left had gone quiet a long time ago.

Men had appetites, and a woman past 40 had them too. Put the right man in front of her and it would work exactly the same way.

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