LOGIN~ CamillaI woke slowly, the light of morning spilling soft and gold through the blinds. The bed felt empty beside me, and for a fleeting second, panic fluttered in my chest. Where was he? Stephano, my heart said it before my brain could catch up, where was he?I sat up, my bare feet brushing against the cold wood floor, and noticed his shirt lying across the chair by the dresser. Without thinking, I picked it up and slipped it on. The fabric swallowed me, the scent of him still faintly clinging to it a smell that made my stomach twist in ways I couldn’t name. I breathed it in, letting it anchor me, and sank onto the edge of the bed.Last night. Oh, last night.The memory hit me in a wave. It wasn’t like before. It was not like the sharp, brutal, wild moments he usually had with me, the kind that left me dizzy, shaken, sometimes ashamed. Last night… last night, it had been different. He had looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered. He had told me he loved me.
~ CamillaI didn’t expect him to move again. For a long, suspended heartbeat, Stephano just stood there across from me, breathing like a man holding himself together with sheer willpower. His eyes, those sharp, cold eyes that had once terrified me were soft. Open. Completely unguarded.Then his voice came, low and hoarse, barely above a whisper:“Camilla… I can’t change the way I treated you.”A pause. His throat worked, like the words were knives going up.“But I promise to spend the rest of my living existence apologizing… if you’ll have me.”My gasp was audible. It was tually audible. It sounded like some ridiculous startled bird sound.In my head, everything went completely blank and chaotic at the same time. A full system meltdown.He… what?What?WHAT?Stephano Maddens, my personal nightmare, the man who’d humiliated me, possessed me, torn my heart open and stomped on it with designer shoes, was offering himself to me?Me?The silence after his words stretched out like a chasm.
~ Stephano By the time I pulled into the driveway, my jaw ached from clenching it the entire ride home. My hands were still tight on the steering wheel, knuckles pale as bone. Isabella’s screams still echoed somewhere in the back of my skull, fading in and out like a bad radio signal. But beneath that was something to look forward to. Someone to look forward to.Camilla.The house was quiet when I stepped inside. Too quiet. My heartbeat stuttered in something like anticipation and dread. I shrugged off my jacket, tossed my keys onto the console, and walked in……and stopped dead.She was there, seated on the couch.Sitting curled up with her knees pulled to her chest, a blanket draped around her shoulders, her hair a little messy, her face bare and soft in the lamplight. The moment she heard my footsteps, she snapped her head up.Our eyes met. The look on her face hit me like a goddamn punch.It was that if surprise first, wide, unguarded. Then relief, subtle but unmistakable. And the
Two officers stepped in first. Then another. Then a detective in plain clothes, middle-aged, tired eyes, the look of a man who had already dealt with one too many ridiculous rich-people crimes this week.And behind them, heels clicking, breath catching, face streaked with makeup, Isabella stumbled out of the hallway, clutching her robe around herself.“Stephy?” she gasped. “What is this? What… what’s happening?”Her eyes darted to the officers, then to me, then back again. She looked like a panicked squirrel. A very stupid panicked squirrel.The detective looked between us. “Mister Maddens?”I gave him a courteous nod, as if he were a waiter and I’d just ordered sparkling water instead of someone’s arrest.“Ah,” I said, tapping the side of my head lightly, feigning a mild forgetfulness. “There she is. I almost forgot I ordered her arrest.”Isabella’s mouth fell open.“What?” she breathed. “You…you what? Stephy, no. No. No, you can’t be serious.”She grabbed my arm. I peeled her off wi
~ Stephano Isabella’s HouseThe closer I got to Isabella’s gated driveway, the hotter the anger in my chest burned.This kind of anger was different. It was a low, ugly flame licking up my ribs, tightening the muscles along my jaw until it felt like I’d crack teeth. I shouldn’t have come here in person. Any sane man would have sent lawyers, security, maybe a demolition crew. But sanity wasn’t something I had much of when it came to Camilla… and especially not after what Isabella had done.The gates were wide open.Wide.Open.It felt like she was expecting me. It felt ike she thought I’d come crawling back. The nerve of this bitch. My hands tightened around the steering wheel until my knuckles blanched. She was still living here, in my house, bought with my money, with furnishings I’d picked out back when I still thought she was just a harmless, clingy distraction instead of a reckless, delusional liability.She had kidnapped the mother of my child. She had tied her to a chair. She h
~ CamillaI wasn’t prepared for breakfast.Not physically, not mentally, not spiritually, nothing in me was built for the shock of waking up to the smell of eggs and butter and actual coffee drifting through the penthouse like we lived in some domestic alternate universe where Stephano Maddens cooked. The Stephano I knew ordered breakfast like royalty: one text, no thanks, no acknowledgement, no eating alongside me. The idea of him cracking eggs with his own hands didn’t even exist in the same galaxy as reality.But there he was. Standing at the stove. Fork in one hand. Spatula in the other. Barefoot, shirtless, hair slightly messy in a way that shouldn't have made my heart wobble, but unfortunately did.And, the most absurd part, he was humming. Humming. I actually thought I was hallucinating. Maybe trauma came with auditory side effects.I slid into a chair, still half convinced this was some luxurious fever dream. He set a plate in front of me, then one for himself, and without ask







