Chapter 7
1158 Words
The photo wouldn’t stop staring at her.
Calla held it in her hands long after Damian had left for his meetings, the note still etched in her mind:
“You don’t know what she’s capable of.”
Celeste’s smile in the background wasn’t accidental. It was calculated. She’d planned it—posed for it—knowing full well what it would do.
Calla dropped the photo on the kitchen island like it burned her.
Because it did.
It burned.
With questions, with fear, with the awful, nagging truth that Damian still hadn’t told her everything.
And neither had Celeste.
She reached for her phone and texted him:
“We need to talk tonight. No more secrets.”
He didn’t respond.
Not immediately.
Not until evening.
“Come to the manor. Alone.”
Vale Manor was nothing like the penthouse.
It wasn’t sleek or cold or modern. It was old. Stately. Overgrown with ivy and secrets. The kind of house that whispered in the halls and remembered everything that happened within its walls.
Calla’s heels clicked on marble as she stepped inside, her reflection ghosting across polished glass and dark wood.
Damian waited in the grand sitting room, suit coat discarded, collar undone. His hands were buried in his pockets—and for once, he looked… unsure.
“You got my message?” she asked.
He nodded. “And you got mine.”
“I did. So tell me. What don’t I know?”
He hesitated, then motioned toward the fireplace. “Sit. This isn’t easy.”
She did.
He stayed standing.
“I didn’t bring you here to scare you,” he said, voice low. “But you need to understand—Celeste isn’t just an ex. She’s dangerous. She wasn’t always that way, but after we broke the engagement…”
“You broke it?”
He met her eyes. “Yes. I couldn’t go through with it. She wanted more than marriage—she wanted power. Ownership. Of me. Of the company. Of my name.”
“She still wants that,” Calla whispered.
Damian nodded. “But now she doesn’t want to share it. She wants to burn it.”
He walked to the cabinet, pulled out a thin black folder, and handed it to her.
Inside: surveillance photos. Calla’s apartment. Her friend’s workplace. Her old school.
“Celeste had you followed,” he said. “She’s been building a case. Trying to find anything she can use to discredit you—and by extension, me.”
Calla’s breath caught.
“All this because you married me?”
“No. All this because I didn’t marry her.”
Later that night, as Calla sat in the guest bedroom staring at the ceiling, she heard it.
A whisper. A creak. Movement.
She slipped into the hallway, barefoot, following the sound.
It led to the east wing. A wing she hadn’t been allowed in before.
The door was ajar.
Inside was a room filled with boxes, shelves, and one massive wall covered in framed portraits and articles.
At the center: Celeste.
Photos of her with Damian. Her family. Her at events. And scrawled notes in red ink beneath them:
“Calla Monroe – Fraud?”
“Weak link. Replaceable.”
“Damian will come back.”
It was a shrine.
A warning.
A declaration of war.
Calla backed out of the room—right into someone’s chest.
She gasped.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Damian said, gripping her shoulders. “I should’ve locked the door.”
“You should’ve burned it,” she snapped.
“I kept it to remind myself what we’re up against.”
“She’s obsessed,” Calla whispered. “This isn’t jealousy. This is—”
“Possession,” he finished.
She turned to him. “Then we need to fight back.”
Damian looked at her like she’d just flipped the script. “You want to fight?”
“I’m not walking away,” she said. “Not after everything.”
He pulled her to him slowly, almost reverently. “You’d go to war for me?”
“No,” she murmured. “With you.”
The next morning, Calla arrived at Vale Industries—alone.
Celeste was already there.
Perched like a queen at the edge of the boardroom table, sipping coffee, talking to Damian’s legal team like she still owned the room.
Calla stepped inside, shutting the door behind her.
Celeste’s eyes flicked up. “Oh. The wife.”
“Call me Calla,” she said, smile tight.
Celeste rose. “What are you doing here?”
“Making a few things clear.”
She walked to the head of the table, right in front of Damian’s empty chair, and set down a manila folder.
Celeste looked bored. “And that is?”
“Proof,” Calla said. “That I’m not who you think I am.”
Inside the folder: the nonprofit Calla helped start before the marriage. Financials. Volunteer logs. Tax receipts. Evidence of a woman who gave more than she took—and receipts that countered every accusation Celeste had tried to dig up.
“And one more thing,” Calla said. She pulled out a flash drive and plugged it into the screen.
Up came security footage.
From the gala.
Celeste. In the back. Handing off an envelope to a man in a dark coat.
“Your stalker?” Calla said sweetly. “We traced him. He works for your father’s security firm. Small world.”
Celeste’s smile wavered.
“Don’t test me again,” Calla said, voice calm. “Because I’m not the same girl I was when I walked into Damian’s office. And I’m not afraid of you.”
Celeste stood. Cold. Quiet.
But her eyes said everything.
This isn’t over.
When Calla returned home, Damian was waiting by the windows, looking out over the city like it was something he might lose.
“How bad was it?” he asked.
She dropped her purse. “Handled.”
He turned. “You stood up to her.”
“Someone had to.”
He closed the distance, cupped her face in his hands. “You keep surprising me.”
“I’m not here to be easy, Damian.”
He kissed her hard.
Then softer.
Then not at all.
“Then don’t make it easy for me to fall for you,” he whispered.
Calla’s breath hitched. “Is that what’s happening?”
He didn’t answer.
But he didn’t let go.
Later, as the city lit up below them, Calla sat beside Damian on the rooftop, sharing a bottle of wine and silence.
“What now?” she asked.
“Now we keep going,” he said. “We build something stronger than the lies.”
“But what if the vow you made… was real?”
He looked at her, eyes darker than the sky.
“Then I never want to break it.”
- Writer
