Too Late
1122 Words
POV: Kiara Williams
The world loves to hate a woman who falls from grace. Especially when she used to wear a crown.
I woke up to a phone buzzing non-stop on the nightstand. Dozens of missed calls, message alerts, and notifications exploded across my screen. Twitter was on fire. So was the gossip blogosphere.
Heiress of Scandal: Did Kiara Williams Know About Her Father’s Crimes?
The headline was accompanied by a photo of me taken two years ago laughing beside my father at a corporate fundraiser. I was wearing a red dress and pearls, a champagne glass in my hand, and my father’s arm around my shoulder.
The perfect image of complicity.
I sat up in bed, heart hammering. I hadn’t spoken publicly since the company collapsed. I’d said nothing about my father. And yet someone had leaked this deliberately, timed just after the wedding.
The comments were brutal.
"She probably helped him launder money."
"Daddy’s little puppet married the devil himself."
"A walking PR disaster in designer heels."
I gritted my teeth, trying to ignore the hot sting behind my eyes. I’d survived worse. I had to. But this wasn’t just about reputation now. This was war.
And Zayn hadn’t even warned me.
---
I stormed downstairs to find him, my phone clenched so tightly it was a miracle it didn’t shatter in my hand.
He was in his office, casually sipping black coffee and scrolling through financial reports like the internet wasn’t currently dragging my name through hell.
“You knew,” I said.
He didn’t look up. “I’m always informed.”
“You saw this coming and didn’t say anything?”
“Was I supposed to?”
I stared at him, disbelief turning into fury. “You’re my husband. Or does that title only work when the cameras are rolling?”
Zayn finally set his coffee down and looked at me, really looked at me.
“I’m not here to protect your feelings, Kiara,” he said coolly. “I’m here to protect your name. And I did. I had the story flagged and sent takedown notices to three outlets already.”
“Too late.” My voice cracked. “The damage is done.”
His eyes softened for half a second, barely but it was there.
“I warned you this wouldn’t be easy,” he said quietly. “You wanted to save your father’s empire. This is the cost.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “You think I wanted this? You think I dreamed of being married to a man who treats me like a contract?”
That hit something. His jaw tightened.
“I think you’re naive,” he said after a beat. “And I think you’re starting to realize what the world really is.”
He stood, brushing past me.
“Where are you going?”
“To meetings. Unlike you, I can’t afford to fall apart because someone posted a bad headline.”
The words stung. I hated how much they stung. I hated that he didn’t even see me as a person, just a performance partner in his revenge opera.
And the worst part?
I didn’t know what was more humiliating, his cruelty or the fact that I still wanted him to care.
---
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
The image of that headline replayed in my mind over and over again, looping through my skull like a punishment. I sat by the fireplace in a silk robe, nursing a glass of wine I didn’t even want.
I didn’t cry. I refused to cry. I’d already done enough of that over the past month.
When I heard his footsteps behind me, I didn’t turn around. He stood there for a long time before he said anything.
“You shouldn’t read the comments,” Zayn said finally.
“I don’t need advice,” I replied.
He came to stand beside me, his expression unreadable. “I’ve been dragged through worse.”
I looked up at him. “Good for you. Doesn’t mean I deserve it.”
“No,” he said, voice lower. “You don’t.”
That stunned me. Not because he was wrong, but because he’d finally said something human.
“What changed?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and pulled out a small flash drive. He turned it over in his fingers like it weighed a thousand pounds.
“I got this today. Evidence from someone I trusted a long time ago.”
“What’s on it?”
“Something that proves your father did more than embezzle money.” He looked at me then. “Much more.”
I swallowed. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re not him.”
And just like that, the world tilted sideways.
He looked tired suddenly, haunted. Like for once, he wasn’t the puppeteer pulling strings. He was just a man with too many ghosts and not enough peace.
I shouldn’t have felt it. But I did.
Sympathy. Confusion. Attraction. All wrapped in a dangerous little bundle that made my chest ache.
“You can’t keep punishing me for what he did,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“I’m trying.” His voice was low now. “But I’ve lived in darkness so long, Kiara… I don’t always know how to step into the light.”
There was something in his eyes. Something breaking.
I didn’t think. I just moved.I leaned forward, and so did he, and when our lips touched, it wasn’t calculated. It wasn’t a show. It wasn’t revenge.
It was raw. It was desperate. It was real.
We didn’t make it to the bedroom.
He pulled me into his lap by the fire, hands in my hair, mouth on my neck. My robe slipped from my shoulders. His shirt hit the floor. We kissed like we were trying to forget everything and remember something at the same time.
It was messy. Heated. A storm of emotion we couldn’t name yet.
And when we collapsed together, skin to skin, breathless and quiet, I almost believed the lie we were selling.
That this was something more. That maybe, just maybe, the devil could love the girl he married to destroy.
---
Zayn POV
I lay beside Kiara. She is fast asleep after our intimate moment. She looks gentle and beautiful as I stare at her face but she doesn't know the storm that is coming to her.
“She is beginning to trust me,” I murmur to myself. “Oh little Kiara, you don't know what you have gotten yourself into.”
- Writer
