Chapter 6
May 30, 2025
Celene’s POV…
Becoming strong isn’t easy. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process—a hard one.
And becoming a Monroe? That takes more than confidence. It takes surrender.
No one warns you that transformation feels a lot like grief. No one tells you that becoming someone new means letting go of the version of yourself who spent years just trying to be loved.
This wasn’t a makeover.
This was a dismantling.
On the first day, the voice coach circled me like she was looking for flaws she already knew were there.
“You speak too softly,” she said sharply. “Your vowels trail off. You let your words apologize for existing.”
Then came posture.
“Chin up. Shoulders down. You keep standing like you’re sorry for taking up space.”
The stylist didn’t say much. She just dropped a stack of fabric—black, red, and bone-white—on the table and said, “If you want to be liked, go to brunch. If you want to look like power, we start from the bones.”
Everything I had used to survive my life with Rhys—the patience, the warmth, the way I learned to make myself small enough to fit into his world—they pulled it out of me piece by piece. And I didn’t stop them. Because this time, I wasn’t trying to survive.
I was learning how to win.
They called it “the program.” Five hours a day. Seven days a week. No mirrors, no distractions. Just drills. Repetition. Discipline.
On the third day, I saw the Forbes article:
The Next Power Couple: Rhys Carrington and Caldwell Heiress Expand Joint Portfolio.
He looked relaxed. Polished. Like the last few years of our marriage had never happened. Like he hadn’t just traded his wife in for someone shinier and more convenient.
I stared at that article for twenty-three minutes. My hand curled into a fist, and then I turned off my phone. I walked back into voice training with a new kind of focus. I didn’t need to explain why.
“Again,” I said, repeating the pitch I’d been rehearsing all day.
The coach looked at the clock. “We’re already thirty minutes over—”
“Again.”
I pushed harder than I thought I could. My body began to adapt, slowly but surely. I didn’t crave comfort. I craved control.
And somewhere in the background, Fernand watched. He never hovered or interrupted. He stood at the edge of the room once a week, arms folded behind his back like he was monitoring a market trend.
“This isn’t about making you pretty,” he told me one day. “Pretty gets eaten alive. This is about turning you into something they can’t afford to lose.”
I crossed my arms. “So you’re building a legacy with the daughter you tried to erase?”
He didn’t flinch.
“I’m building with the only person who might survive what’s coming.”
Then he walked out.
Two weeks in, the physical training intensified. The body coach kept repositioning my shoulders until I finally snapped.
“I’m not a robot,” I hissed, jerking away.
“No,” she said calmly. “You’re a Monroe. So start acting like one.”
Every day, I trained. And every night, when the room was empty and the lights were low, I thought about Rhys.
I thought about how quickly he’d moved on. How casually he’d called me dead weight.
How easy it had been for him to pretend I never existed.
He smiled in photos with Bianca like he hadn’t once told me he couldn’t breathe without me.
So each time I tightened the straps on my heels, each time I corrected my voice, adjusted my posture, or raised my chin just a little higher, I did it with his name on my tongue like a shard of glass.
“You’re not just building confidence,” the strategist told me. “You’re building vengeance. In silk.”
And I believed her.
By day twenty-three, I stood in front of a mirror and didn’t look away.
My hair was clean, slicked back into a sharp bun. My eyes were lined in black, unapologetically direct. My lips wore matte red—no gloss, no softness. I pulled on a tailored black blazer with strong shoulders and matching trousers that felt like armor.
My heels clicked like a warning.
The watch on his wrist wasn’t mine yet.
But it would be.
I didn’t look like Rhys Carrington’s ex-wife anymore.
I looked like the headline he wouldn’t recover from.
There was a knock at the door, a short pause, and then Fernand stepped in. He gave me one long look. No smile. No emotion. Just calculation.
“You’ve grown into your face,” he said. “The press will take you seriously now.”
I didn’t thank him. I didn’t need him to like me.
“I read Rhys’s latest interview,” I said. “He told The Post that Bianca was the best decision he ever made.”
Fernand raised an eyebrow. “Then let’s give him something to regret.”
He stepped closer, then paused. “You know this won’t be enough, right? They’ll still question you. Still test you. Still whisper behind your back.”
“Let them,” I said quietly.
He nodded. “Good.”
I turned to the mirror one last time. Not to admire the reflection, but to remember what all of this was for. To make sure the woman staring back at me still carried the fire that started it all.
This was never about looking good.
It was about never being made to feel powerless again.
