Chapter 3
Apr 18, 2025
Her heart was breaking. But her spine remained straight.
Years of practice had taught her how to wear pain like armor.
The murmurs around her were sharp as knives. Whispers slithered between silk gowns and tailored suits, voices dripping with pity, amusement, mockery.
None of them mattered.
Her eyes were fixed on him. The room fell silent as she stepped forward.
Her heels clicked against marble, a steady rhythm in the heavy hush. The crowd parted for her, forming a pathway toward the man she had once built her world around.
She stopped just a breath away, close enough to catch the scent of Catherine’s expensive perfume. Close enough to see the way Stephan’s expression didn’t change.
No guilt. No hesitation.
Just mild annoyance.
Valerie lifted her left hand, the diamond ring catching the chandelier’s light—the ring he had given her years ago.
With slow, steady fingers, she slipped it off. She held it for only a second before reaching for his palm, pressing it into his hand.
“I seems like you’ve forgot something, Stephan.”
Her voice was calm, but it carried across the room like a gunshot. For the first time that evening, he actually looked at her. Saw her.
His gaze flicked down to the ring, then back to her, a flicker of irritation crossing his face.
“Valerie,” he said, voice sharp. “Don’t make a scene.”
The old Valerie would have.
She would have flinched at his tone. She would have apologized, lowered her gaze, swallowed the humiliation burning in her throat.
But something inside her had already snapped. The pain of his betrayal had burned away her fear.
She met his eyes, unblinking. Let him see the steel beneath her soft exterior.
“I’m not making a scene,” she said, her voice even, firm. “I’m finally making the right choice.”
Catherine shifted closer, her red lips curving into a mocking smile.
“Honey,” she purred, tilting her head against Stephan’s shoulder, “perhaps you should have security escort her out.”
Valerie didn’t react. She didn’t even blink. But she noticed the way Stephan smirked, cold, condescending.
It was the same expression he had worn for long countless months, slowly pushing her further and further into nothingness.
“Where will you go, Valerie? You have nothing.” His voice dropped lower, crueler. “You are nothing without me.”
Nothing.
The word should have hurt.
It should have sent her spiraling, breaking her down into the weak, invisible thing he believed she was. Instead, it did something else.
A door inside her, long shut and buried, creaked open. And for the first time in years, she let herself remember who she really was.
She smiled.
Not the sweet, hopeful smile she had once given him. Not the quiet, desperate one that had begged for his love.
This smile was slow. Sharp. Poisonous.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she calmly said.
She didn’t wait for his reaction. She turned and walked away.
The night air hit her face as she stepped outside, cool and clean, chasing away the suffocating warmth of the ballroom.
Her fingers didn’t shake as she reached for her phone.
She had buried this number for years. Had ignored it. Pretended it didn’t exist.
Because using it meant returning to the life she swore she would never go back to. For her own safety perhaps. But she had nowhere else to turn now.
The screen glowed against the darkness as she scrolled through old contacts, stopping at the one name she had tried to forget.
She pressed the call.
The line rang once. Twice. Three times.
Then, the call connected. A voice answered—deep, familiar, and knowing.
Silence stretched between them for a beat. Then, the voice finally spoke.
“I was wondering when you’d finally come home, Celeste.”
