Christmas Wishes (A Holiday Billionaire Love Story)

The mirror cracked with a loud sound. Camela stumbled back, her sobs choking in her throat. Vincent’s reflection didn’t disappear. His golden eyes kept staring at her, and his smile cut through the glass like a blade.

Her phone lay on the floor, buzzing again, but she couldn’t reach for it. Instead, her trembling hands gripped the wall tightly.

“No…” she whispered. “Why…why are you still here?”

The mirror stayed silent. Yet, his reflection tilted its head slowly and deliberately, like a predator deciding when to strike.

The lights flickered once more, plunging the apartment into waves of light and darkness. Each flicker made his reflection seem closer, his smile wider, and his head tilted as if he were listening intently.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Her scar felt like it was on fire.

In that silent moment, his voice whispered—though her ears swore it came only from her own mind:

“You’ll never leave me, Camela. Not truly.”

She slammed her fists against the wall, screaming, “Then I’ll make you believe it! I’ll vanish! Even you won’t find me!”

Her phone buzzed again. It was another message from the same unknown number. It read: “You can’t run from me.”

Her legs buckled beneath her. She pressed both hands over her mouth to suppress her scream.

That night, she made a decision.

The city around her felt heavy with memories—streets where she had run down in blood, alleys where Vincent’s shadow had followed her, doors she had locked countless times but never felt safe behind.

She realized now that safety was just an illusion. He had whispered this truth so deeply that it felt like it was inscribed into her skin. But she could still play the fox's game and outsmart him.

"I'll give you a ghost to haunt," she muttered, staring into her bathroom mirror. "But not me. Not anymore."

She ran her fingers over the scar on her collarbone, a slight bitter smile appearing on her face as she whispered, “You always wanted me to die in this mystery. Fine, I’ll grant you that ending.

Hours later, she sat on the cold kitchen floor with her phone resting in her lap. Her thoughts raced endlessly: “He isn’t real. He’s dead. He’s just in my head.”

But deep down, she knew the truth: Vincent never really left her. Whether he was a ghost, a shadow, or just a memory, he was always there with her.

The only way to find freedom was to completely vanish—not just hide away or block a number or even move across the city. She had to die.

Her whisper trembled in the dark kitchen. “If I’m gone…he can’t follow me.”

That thought took root in her mind like a seed sprouting. She stood up, wiped away her tears, and forced her trembling hands to steady themselves.

Her reflection stared back at her from the cracked mirror—her eyes hollowed and broken but filled with determination.

“I’ll disappear,” she said sternly.

The crash was carefully planned in silence. Though Mrs. Doyle noticed the signs in her body language and could tell that something was oddly off about her.

Two nights later, rain slicked the highway as a silver sedan sped down the curve, its headlights cutting through the stormy darkness.

Inside the car, Camela held the steering wheel tightly. Her hands trembled, but her mind was cold and steady. The passenger seat beside her was filled with items—burned photographs, torn letters, and an old wedding veil. These were all pieces of her past that she wanted to erase.

She pressed her foot harder on the gas pedal. The storm swallowed the road ahead.

Then—

The sedan swerved off course, crashed through the guardrail, and exploded into flames against the rocks below.

The fire lit up the sky in red. Sirens arrived later, but there wasn’t much left to find.

A week later, newspapers carried the headline: “Young Woman Dies in Tragic Highway Collision.”

The photos were blurry. They showed a wrecked car engulfed in flames and a body so burned that no one could question it.

Camela watched the news from a grimy motel room.

She wore a wig now, and the scar on her chest was covered with heavy makeup. The news anchor spoke in a calm tone:

“Authorities have confirmed the victim’s identity using dental records. Funeral arrangements are being made.”

Camela's lips twitched into the faintest sad smile. They believe it; every single one of them.

The papers labeled it as tragic. The obituary was short and respectful, written by her father's people: Camela Castellano Siegel, beloved daughter, gone too soon.

At the funeral, a closed casket rested beneath flowers. Neighbors cried while friends shared whispers. Her father stood stiff and unreadable, his face was pale with something close to fear.

The city mourned for her. The whispers faded away. The story came to an end.

And yet—Camela watched it all from a distance.

She stood at the edge of a rain-soaked pier, her hood pulled over her head, listening to a radio broadcast of her own death.

Her lips barely moved as she whispered, "Goodbye, Camela."

The cremation was scheduled, and her father received the ashes with trembling hands. But Camela wasn’t there; she was already on a plane, staring out the small oval window as the city below grew smaller.

Her old self was gone. She was just ashes now. Vincent had nothing left to pursue.

Weeks later, she was settling into a new country. This place smelled of rain and stone. She chose it carefully—far enough away that no one from her old life could stumble into her.

The air felt warmer here, the streets were unfamiliar, and the voices sounded strange. She rented a room above a flower shop, where vines climbed into the sunlight outside her window.

She transformed into someone new—a different name and a different face.

Her hair was cut shorter and dyed darker. Her clothes were simple and without labels. The scar still throbbed beneath the fabric, but no one here stared at her.

Her name was no longer Camela; according to her new documents, she was Elena Ruiz—a teacher with no history worth remembering.

The first time someone called her Elena, she almost didn’t answer. But gradually, she began getting used to the name. Each time it felt like shedding skin, leaving her past behind piece by piece.

At the market, strangers greeted her in a language she was still trying to learn. She smiled politely with her head lowered, and no one questioned her presence.

At night, she sat in her small rented apartment. The walls were plain white. There was a narrow bed and a desk that held only a lamp and a notebook. She had smashed all the mirrors, so there were none left.

Yet at night, when she lay in bed, she still heard his voice—Vincent’s voice:

"You can’t bury me with ashes. I am the fire that made them."

She would squeeze her eyes closed and softly whisper, “You’re gone. You can’t follow me.”

Yet, her chest always ached with doubt.

She wrote letters to herself without signing them. They contained simple reminders:

“You are free.”

“You are alive.”

“He cannot find you.”

Sometimes, she believed those words. Other times, she woke up in the middle of the night, scratching at her scar, convinced she had heard his voice again. But when she looked around—there was no one there. No reflection. Only silence.

Weeks went by. Then months.

For the first time in years, she felt free from chains.

Elena—Camela—began to breathe again. She strolled through the markets and bought fruit from the stalls while watching children chase each other through the narrow streets.

She created new routines: cooking rice on her small stove and working at a bookstore where no one asked too many questions. One day, she even laughed when a customer’s child fell and dropped all their books at once.

Life was almost normal. Sometimes, during the quiet hours of dawn, Camela almost felt she was free.

The flower shop located downstairs where she lived, filled the building with lovely scents of roses and lavender. Every morning, the old woman who owned the shop greeted her with a smile and added a beautiful flower to her basket.

One morning, a neighbor leaned over her balcony and asked, “Señora Ruiz, do you live alone? No family here?”

Camela gave a faint smile, keeping her heart calm and her voice steady. “No. Just me.”

And that was the truth.

That night, she lit a candle by the window and softly whispered to the flame. “See, Vincent? You don’t own me anymore. You can’t reach me. I’m gone.”

The candle flickered, and she almost believed it was a response.

Later that night, she had a dream about fire. She heard Vincent’s voice whispering in her ear: “You think I don’t know where you are?”

She woke up with a scream, drenched in sweat. The bed sheets twisted around her ankles like chains.

She sat up quickly, her heart racing. She made herself look around the small apartment—the walls were white, the curtains drawn shut, there were no mirrors, and it felt empty with no shadow or ghost.

But still, she whispered aloud to calm herself: “He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone.”

The next day at work, she found herself staring at the glass window for too long—half-expecting to see golden eyes looking back at her. But there was nothing, yet an uneasy feeling lingered because being safe was only a word.

It happened on a rainy morning when Camela returned from the market with groceries in one hand and her coat soaked through. As she unlocked her apartment door, she hummed a tune she couldn’t quite remember—

Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks.

There was a box sitting on the floor right in front of her door—a small package wrapped in plain brown paper.

It arrived that morning in the regular mail. There were no return labels or stamps—just her name, Elena Ruiz, written messily across the brown package.

Her breath caught in her throat. She had only shared these names with the officials who processed her papers.

Her chest felt tight. She glanced up and down the hallway; it was empty and silent.

Her hands trembled as she bent to pick up the small box to her table. The cardboard was damp from the rain. She carried it inside, locking the door quickly behind her.

For several minutes, she just stared at it on the table, her heart pounding louder than the ticking clock on the wall. Her scar throbbed under the heavy makeup.

Finally, she tore open the wrapping paper. Inside was a figurine—a small red fox.

It was crafted from porcelain and appeared flawless. Its glass eyes sparkled with a golden hue in the morning light.

Camela felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her hands trembled so much that she almost let it slip from her grasp.

There was no note, no signature, no explanation—just the figurine fox.

She staggered back, her voice trembling. “No…no, it's not possible. This can’t be happening.”

But the figurine fox seemed to smile at her, its sharp face frozen in the perfect shape of Vincent’s smile.

In that silent moment, she knew the truth: he had found her. He had always known where to find her. And he would never let go.

She stumbled back against the wall, her breath breaking into gasps as the room whirled around her. The scar on her chest burned white-hot, as though mocking her pain.

Camela dropped to her knees, clutching her chest. She slowly sank to the floor, with the box lying open in front of her and the fox figurine staring up at her as if it had won.

In a hushed voice, she broke the quiet. “He never lets go.”