Chapter 27
May 30, 2025
Celene’s POV…
Another day. Another meeting. Another crown to wear. But this time, they didn’t look through me when I walked into Monroe Towers. They rose. They nodded. They watched like they finally saw what had been there all along. The silence wasn’t judgment anymore. It was respect. And maybe that should’ve felt good. Maybe the validation should’ve warmed me. But today? It just felt… heavy. Not the kind of heavy that breaks you. The kind you carry when you’re tired of rebuilding.
I stepped out of the elevator after 9 a.m. with procurement, already half-dreaming of black coffee and five minutes of silence. That’s when I saw him. Leaning against the concrete pillar across the plaza. Hands in his coat. Eyes hollow. Rhys Carrington.
He didn’t look like a man with an empire anymore. He looked like a man who lost everything and finally realized it was his fault. I didn’t stop walking until I was a few feet away. He didn’t speak. Just looked at me like he didn’t have the right. And for once, he was right.
“You couldn’t text?” I said, arms crossed, tone clipped.
He looked up slowly. “I didn’t think I deserved to.” The words hit differently than I expected. Not because they hurt. Because they didn’t. They just… sat there. Like something that should’ve come years ago.
“I’m not here to fix anything,” he added, voice raw. “I know it’s too late.”
I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe deep. I just watched him squirm beneath the truth.
“My mother’s in federal custody,” he said. “Bianca’s behind bars. The house is quiet. Too quiet.” A pause. “And I still can’t stop thinking about the woman I threw away like a PR liability.” His voice cracked then. Just once. I stayed still. Because I’d cried enough tears for him.
“I didn’t come here to ask for forgiveness,” he said. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it even if you gave it to me.”
“Good,” I said softly. “Because it’s not yours.” He nodded. Slowly. Like every motion cost him something.
“You were the one who stayed,” he whispered. “You loved me through the worst version of myself. I didn’t know how to be worthy of that.”
“And now?” I asked.
“I still don’t,” he said. And there it was. Not an apology. Just the truth. Painful. Unpolished. Real. I looked at him. Really looked at him. The man I once begged to see me. To fight for me. To believe in me. Now standing in front of me like a ghost of a war I already survived.
“I don’t hate you, Rhys,” I said. “But I don’t carry you with me anymore.” He didn’t speak. Didn’t try. Because he knew, this was the end. But I wasn’t done.
“You weren’t the villain,” I added. “Not completely.” He blinked.
“You were the moment I had to break… so I could become something stronger.” He stared at me, eyes full of something too late to matter.
“And now?” he asked, barely above a whisper. I smiled, but it wasn’t cruel. It was honest.
“You’re not my heartbreak,” I said. “You’re just my history.”
