Chapter 30
Jun 23, 2025
Celene’s POV
The ballroom was still clapping behind me. Still spinning, still full of cameras and flutes and perfectly-timed toasts. But I had stepped out of it. I stood beneath the courtyard lights, cold stone under my heels, night air biting against my skin, satin gown clinging to every decision I ever made to get here. I needed air that didn’t smell like legacy. I needed a moment that didn’t ask me to smile.
And then I felt them. Two separate footsteps. One from the terrace. The man who never asked for my spotlight, but stood in it anyway. And one from the garden gate. The man who once mistook possession for love. Damon emerged first, tall, still, watching me like I was gravity and he was done pretending to orbit elsewhere. Then Rhys, messier. Unraveled. Like he knew the battlefield he was walking into was one he’d helped build.
They stopped. Equal distance from me. And said nothing. They didn’t have to. The silence between us was full of everything they couldn’t take back. Damon was the first to speak.
“I didn’t want to feel this,” he said, voice low and calm. “I didn’t want to want you.” I turned to him slowly. He was steady. Collected. But not guarded.
“Because I was trained to value control,” he went on. “And you were the one thing I couldn’t control. You were louder than my logic. Smarter than my instincts. You walked into every room like it was already yours.” He swallowed.
“I didn’t want to need that. But I do.” He stepped closer, carefully.
“You challenge me. You scare me. You match me. And the only time I’ve ever felt completely unafraid was when I realized I could build something real, with you.” My throat tightened, but I didn’t move. I turned when Rhys’ voice cracked through the quiet.
“Celene.” Just my name. Just enough to hurt.
“I didn’t see you,” he said. “Not really. I saw the version of you that fit beside me. The version that stayed quiet when I needed control. The version that looked like mine.”
His voice wavered, then steadied. “You weren’t mine. You never were. You were a storm I tried to cage. And when you stopped asking me for permission to exist… I walked away.” He looked down for a second, then back at me. His gaze was raw. Exposed.
“I was wrong. About you. About us. About the kind of love you needed. I didn’t lose you because you were too much. I lost you because I wasn’t enough to hold what you were becoming.”
And just like that, I stood in the middle of every version of me I’d ever been. I took a breath. And for the first time, I really looked at them. Rhys. He was the boy who told me I was beautiful, then asked me to shrink. The man who held my hand through boardrooms and ballroom galas… but never held space for my ambition. He had wanted to protect me, but only if I needed saving. His love had been warm. But conditional. I had cried oceans for him. I had screamed into pillows over him. And now? Now he was here, finally ready, but too late.
And Damon… Damon never promised comfort. Never played soft. He had challenged every move I made. Demanded excellence. Called out my doubts. He never made it easy. But he never made me small. When he looked at me, I didn’t feel like someone’s prize.
I felt like the whole damn game. With him, I didn’t have to fight to be seen. But I still had to fight to be trusted. He had let me earn him. Slowly. Completely. On my own terms. And he stood here now, not waiting for an answer. Just giving me the choice.
The ballroom doors opened behind me. The emcee called my name during the ceremony. “Your newly appointed CEO, Celene Monroe, please join us for the ceremonial first dance.”
A spotlight spilled across the marble. Everyone turned. Inside, they were waiting. And behind me… so were they. Two men. Two paths. Damon stepped forward, his hand steady. Rhys followed, slower, palm open like surrender. Two different kinds of love. Two different kinds of survival.
I looked at them both. At what they cost me. At what they revealed in me. At who I became because of them. And then I looked down. At my hand. At theirs. I didn’t speak. I didn’t flinch. I reached. And chose.
I placed my hand in one of theirs. The ballroom exhaled. But I didn’t look back.
Because this wasn’t about them. Not anymore. This was about me. About walking into the spotlight, not as someone adored, or abandoned. But as someone whole. And as the music began, and I stepped onto the dance floor.
