Every time love Ch 18

Celene’s POV…

I woke up in a panic. Not the cute, stretch-and-sigh kind. The ‘holy shit, I have a board meeting in an hour’ kind. I sat up so fast I got dizzy, sheets tangling around my legs, hair an actual disaster.

“Oh my God,” I muttered, blinking at the sun flooding through the floor-to-ceiling windows. “We’re late. I’m late. Why didn’t the alarm go off?”

And then I turned, and nearly screamed. Because Damon Ashcroft was very much in my bed. Shirtless. Asleep. And somehow still smug-looking.

“Damon!” I hissed, swatting his shoulder. “Wake up! Get up! We’re late!”

He blinked once. Slowly. Like this wasn’t a catastrophe. “What time is it?”

“Too late for you to be this calm,” I snapped, already sliding out of bed, half-hopping into my skirt.

I grabbed my blouse from the floor, ignoring how scandalously wrinkled it was, then stormed toward the bathroom, barefoot, braless, still in a state of ‘how did we end up naked and tangled and…oh right.’ I slammed the door behind me, nearly tripped on my own heels, then stared at myself in the mirror. Lipstick smudged. Neck… marked. Damn it.

Twenty minutes later, I walked out of that bathroom reborn. Hair slicked back into a sleek bun. A red dress so sharp it could cut egos. Gold accents. Heels that sounded like power every time they hit marble. And Damon, still lounging in bed, watching me like he hadn’t just rearranged my entire life twelve hours ago. His eyes dragged down my body, slow, unapologetic. I smirked.

“What?” I asked, grabbing my earrings.

He just tilted his head. “You clean up nice. You always dress like vengeance after sex?”

I raised a brow. “You always act surprised?”

He sat up, lazy and lethal. “I’m not surprised. Just impressed. Especially by the whole panic-to-villain arc you just pulled in under half an hour.” I smiled, unapologetically wicked.

“You know,” I said, stepping closer, “for someone who claimed to despise me, you had a pretty hard time keeping your hands off me last night.” He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.

“Funny,” he said, standing now, bare chest and all. “I was about to say the same thing.”

I lifted my chin. “Maybe I was just curious.”

“And now?” I took a slow step toward him, brushing imaginary lint off his shoulder.

“Now?” I said, lips close to his ear. “I’m in charge of this little game. Try to keep up.” He caught my wrist gently. Looked me dead in the eye.

“So you’re ready now?” he asked, voice low. “To walk in there. To face them. To take everything they swore you couldn’t?”

My smile faded, but not from fear. From fire. “Who told you I wasn’t ready?” He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stared.

Damon told me to stop caring what they thought. And maybe for the first time in my life, I listened. The headlines? Noise. The whispers? Background static. If I let them define me, I’d always be climbing out of someone else’s opinion. I’m done doing that. Because I realized something in the wreckage: some people exist just to see you break.

But me? I was never built to break quietly. The second I stepped through the doors, everything stilled. Like the air itself hesitated. All eyes turned. Not to Damon Ashcroft, though he cut a striking figure beside me in that dark suit, tie loosened just enough to make women glance twice. No, they were looking at me.

The girl they underestimated. The CEO they called a placeholder. The ex-wife they thought would fold. Wrapped in a red silk dress that hugged every inch of a body they once called decorative. A slit up to my thigh. Back bare. Shoulders squared like they carried something more dangerous than charm, intention. And I wore that intention like perfume.

“Red?” Damon said under his breath, eyes scanning the room. “You came to set something on fire?” I didn’t smile. Not yet.

I just said, “No point coming if you don’t leave a burn mark.”

The whispers started as soon as we hit the main floor.

“She looks… different.”

“That’s Celene Monroe?”

“I thought she’d left after the scandal.”

Oh, I heard them. I let them echo. Let them travel like wildfire under my heels as I walked straight toward the crowd that once looked through me. Damon kept beside me, never an inch ahead, never behind. He didn’t hover. He didn’t instruct. He let me lead. And for once? I felt what power actually looked like.Not borrowed but owned. An investor approached us, gray hair, sharp suit, the kind of man who used to shake Rhys’s hand and ignore mine.

“Celene,” he said, visibly recalibrating as he took in the gown. “You’ve… certainly made an impression.”

I tilted my head. “That’s what women in power do.”

He laughed awkwardly. “Of course. Of course.” Damon didn’t say a word. Just sipped his drink and let me handle it. Because I could. Because he knew I didn’t need saving. Tss. Someone’s feel cocky.

And then I felt someone’s eyes on me. That stare is heavy, bruising and familiar. I didn’t even have to look. But I did because that’s fun. Rhys stood on the far side of the ballroom, tie loose, jaw locked, eyes burning straight into mine. And he looked….wrecked.

Like he hadn’t slept in days. Like the realization of who I’d become without him hit him square in the chest and knocked the breath from his lungs. He didn’t blink, didn’t move. His gaze trailed from my collarbone to the slit in my dress. To the way Damon leaned in when I whispered something about the catering being beneath us. And I saw it all. The jealousy. The ache. The regret. Like I was his ghost, except I wasn’t haunting him. I was thriving. That’s it Rhys. Look at what you have lost.

“Your ex-husband’s going to implode,” Damon muttered in my ear as I turned from Rhys’s stare.

“He already did,” I replied. “He just hasn’t admitted it yet.”

Damon’s eyes flicked to mine. “You’re terrifying tonight.”

I smirked. “And you like it.” His gaze dropped briefly, to my lips. Then to my neckline. Then right back up to meet mine.

“I do.” his lips touched my ears for a couple of seconds. I bit my lips as my body heated.

The air thickened. But I didn’t let it consume me. I had something better than heat tonight. I had control. We moved toward the center of the ballroom. More handshakes. More toasts. More moments where people who once doubted me tried to realign their loyalty mid-sentence.

I let them. Let them stumble over their praise. Let them see what it looked like to bet on the wrong woman and lose. And when Damon gently placed his hand on the small of my back to guide me forward through the crowd, I didn’t flinch.

I leaned into it. Not for show. Not for him. For me. Because that touch said what I already knew, I wasn’t just the woman Rhys lost. I was the woman they’d all remember. In red. In heels. With fire in her eyes. And no apologies left to give.