Chapter 107 - The Dream Home

They moved into the beach house on a Tuesday morning when the fog hadn’t yet burned off the Pacific. The movers came at dawn, all soft footsteps and cardboard boxes stacked like towers in the glass-walled living room. By ten, it was just them: Celeste barefoot on the polished concrete floors, Damien in rolled-up sleeves, sleeves dusted with salt air and sunlight.

The house perched above the surf, built into the cliff the way Celeste sometimes imagined she’d been built into Damien, raw edges, solid foundations, waves pounding at the walls but never pulling it loose. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Pale wood and steel beams that felt both modern and timeless. A promise of permanence in an industry where everything else slipped like sand through fingers.

It was Damien’s vision, his gift to her, though he’d never called it that. He’d bought the lot while she was halfway across the world shooting Afterlight, long before the Veronica scandal detonated her life, long before they’d found their way