“Do not believe anything that comes out of Ethan Hunter’s mouth. He used to lie to me, his own wife, and he’s now lying to all of you, the American public,” says a pretty blonde on TV.

Don’t ask me why I’m watching a shitty gossip show where my ex-wife is bashing me. Maybe I hate myself a little, or maybe I just can’t look away from the car crash that is Ashley’s life.

I have billions of dollars in assets and this is how I spend my day off. I lean back in my recliner and raise my glass of whiskey. Taking a sip, I let the tawny liquid blaze down my throat.

Sure, I have Penny, and I love her to death.

But I can’t exactly take her to the bars to drink, or to the clubs to dance. And I can’t even hang out with her much anymore, now that she’s almost a teenager.

Right now, she’s spending the entire day at her best friend’s house, braiding each other’s hair and painting each other’s nails, or whatever it is that little girls do.

At the same time, life could be worse, too. Like I said, I have billions of dollars in assets. Sure, life could be better, if I had better company with whom to enjoy my wealth. But really, I have nothing to cry about.

“Assume everything that comes out of that man’s mouth is false,” says the woman on TV.

She’s dressed in a pair of jeans and an ill-fitting black hoodie, probably in an attempt to look like the average viewer of this dumb show, or maybe to gain people’s sympathy.

Back when we were together, she was always put together, even though we never had much money. Full make-up no matter where we went and fashionable clothes from cheap brands like Forever 21 or H&M.

Fucking Ashley.

Aside from Penny, she has never given me anything of worth. She has just been taking and taking, never giving back whatever I have given her.

She’s even keeping my fucking name.

Wait, no. That’s not quite accurate. She changed her last name to match her second husband, then never bothered to change it back, until she heard of my success. Presumably, that’s when she changed her last name back to Hunter.

She tells the media that she does it to feel closer to her daughter, whom I’m keeping from her. Which is bullshit, of course. She never cares about Penny, except when she thinks she might be able to use our daughter to get something out of me.

Marrying Ashley is my one biggest regret in life. There’s no way for me to justify that decision.

I could live with it if it were just me who’s affected by it, but I’ve brought Penny into the world and inflicted her with the fate of having Ashley as her mom.

We got together when we were still in school. High school sweethearts, they used to call us.

Unfortunately, in my experience, the term often refers to couples who started seeing each other when they were too young to understand how relationships work, and then end up staying together out of habit and fear of being alone.

I’m not saying that’s how it is for everyone, but that’s what happened to Ashley and me.

We didn’t plan on having Penny; it just happened. So we improvised. We made a commitment to each other because we both thought it was the right thing to do.

We were naïve, penniless, and inexperienced. But I put everything I had into making it work. I was a father, and I had to put my daughter first.

I spent all of my time working. I always had more than one job at a time, although every single one of them paid me the bare minimum. I had to struggle to get enough shifts so I could make a decent living to support my small family of three.

At twenty, I had to grow up and be responsible. I had to leave my youth behind, even though I still felt like a teenager inside. I wasn’t even old enough to drink alcohol yet.

But I did it. I did it because I had to.

Ashley didn’t see it that way, though.

She criticized me for not making more money. She wasn’t happy being stuck at home with the baby all day. She felt entitled to a better life, even though she hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

So, right when I was at my lowest point, she left me. She didn’t care that I needed her—not emotionally, because her attitude had killed any feelings I’d had for her.

But I needed her in my life because of Penny. My daughter was the only good thing left in my life, and Ashley took her away when she left.

I guess, in a way, both of us were using each other.

But we were young. So young. Way too young.

Our friends were off to various colleges all over the country, having wild keg parties and sleeping around.

Meanwhile, we were parents. We were sleep-deprived and we barely had time for anything remotely fun. Our carefree days were behind us.

I understood why Ashley wanted to leave. Hell, I wanted to leave, too, sometimes. It was hard as hell.

But I couldn’t. Penny was my priority, and I wasn’t going to sacrifice her well-being just to sate my own selfishness.

Still, I was in no condition to take care of Penny at the time. I was a complete mess.

So Ashley took Penny with her and I let her, thinking she’d be better off with her mom.

But then I learned just how incompetent Ashley is as a mother. She had boyfriend after boyfriend, letting them get close to my daughter without thought of how that would emotionally affect her.

So I got my act together. I was determined to get Penny back, and I didn’t care what it would take for me to get there. I was going to be successful, and I was going to have the money I needed to hire the best lawyer I could find.

Surprise, surprise, guess who wanted to get back together once I got filthy rich? That’s right. Ashley. The same woman who had walked away from me without a second thought.

As soon as she heard from my lawyer and Googled me, she was calling me and texting me, telling me we could work things out.

“Let’s do it for Penny,” she told me.

Bullshit.

All she wanted was a chump to give her all the money she needed to support the kind of lifestyle she wanted. She aspired to be one of those idle women on those Rich Housewives reality shows.

After giving up on me, Ashley managed to find another man to rope into marriage. Her second husband was some guy whom she thought had money.

In a hilarious twist of fate, the guy thought Ashley was the one with the money. When they both realized what they had done, the whole thing quickly imploded.

When I learned what had happened, I couldn’t help but laugh at her misfortune. She deserved it. The guy deserved it, too. They both got what was coming to them.

I should thank that guy, really. Him and all the other guys who had fucked Ashley. Because they helped my lawyer build the case that Ashley’s life was too unstable to be a good environment for a child to grow up in.

Once I hired that lawyer, getting Penny back was as easy as taking candy from a kindergartener. He was good, and now I have a whole team of even better lawyers.

I thought Ashley had no chance in hell to even try to win Penny back. Her reputation was in the dumps, after the court had recorded how her life was basically made up of a string of bad decisions.

But now she’s trying to get back at me. She’s attacking my reputation in an attempt to get Penny because she knows that’s the best way to hurt me.

She wouldn’t have been able to do half the damage she’s doing right now if it weren’t for Lucas Murdoch. Fucking asshole screwed me over and still has the gall to blame me for everything. Now, he’s even dragging my ex-wife into it, in his attempt to soil my good name.

I absent-mindedly swirl the glass in my hand. I watch as the whiskey spins inside, the ice cubes clinking against the glass.

“We have to stop men like Ethan Hunter together,” Ashley says passionately on TV. She sounds as confident and convincing as a televangelist. No doubt the women who watch this show would eat up whatever shit she feeds them.

“He ruins small businesses and robs people of their livelihoods. He’s destroying people’s finances, making it even harder for American families to survive in this economy. He’s destroying the very things that make America great.”

Wow. I have to hand it to whoever her media coach is. She’s really painting me as a monster. I wouldn’t be surprised if she starts calling me the anti-Christ at this point.

“Do you know the worst thing Ethan Hunter has ever done, though?” Ashley asks the studio audience as the host looks at her with concerned eyes, leaning forward in her chair.

Yeah, Ashley. Tell them. Tell them whatever false tale you’ve spun about me. You’ve got them wrapped around your finger now.

“It’s destroying his own family. That’s the worst thing he’s ever done,” Ashley says, answering her own question. “Being cruel to strangers is one thing. But when a man tears his own family apart and keeps his own daughter from even seeing her mother? That just speaks volumes about his character. A man like that can never be trusted. In anything.”

Yeah. That’s the mother of my child, ladies and gentlemen.

I raise my glass, nod at the TV, and take another sip.

Congratulations, Ashley. And thank you for the character assassination.

Luckily for me, deliverance is near. And it comes in a pretty little package called Megan Jones.