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Chapter Five
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2025-03-04 14:52:04Celeste’s POV
My stomach was in knots as I walked into the children’s ward at the hospital. I desperately needed to see my daughter and know that she was okay.
I reached the room the nurse pointed me to and threw open the door.
My daughter laid in the bed, almost as white as its sheets. I ran straight to her side. There was an IV drip in her arm, and she moaned with pain.
“Bonnie? It’s Mommy. Can you hear me, baby?”
I tried to keep the panic out of my voice.
“Mrs Kent?”
I turned to see a doctor speaking with Damien and his mother, Pauline.
“Yes, I’m Mrs Kent. Are you Bonnie’s doctor? Can you tell me what’s wrong with her?” I asked her, ignoring the others.
“Oh, your husband didn’t tell you?”
I said nothing, and the doctor cleared her throat before responding.
“Your daughter has acute gastroenteritis, most likely caused by the unhygienic takeout food she ate yesterday. She was severely dehydrated when your husband brought her in.”
I blinked back tears. My sweet girl went through so much. I asked the question that had been running through my mind since I read Damien’s text.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“We’ve given her an IV drip to replenish her fluids and some medication for stomach pain and nausea. She should make a full recovery.”
I nodded, relief coursing through me.
“We’ll keep her overnight for observation.” The doctor continued. “She should be discharged tomorrow.”
“How did she get this sick? She was perfectly healthy when I saw her late yesterday morning.” I couldn’t help but glare at Damien as I asked my question.
“It’s unusual for cases to develop this quickly.” The doctor glanced uncomfortably between us. “My professional opinion is that she was given no fluids since falling ill.”
My blood boiled.
“Thank you, doctor.” I said in a clipped tone. “Could you give us a few minutes alone?”
“Sure. Call a nurse if you need anything.”
She practically ran out of the room. The moment the door shut, I turned to my ex husband.
“How could you let this happen? Is cooking so far beneath you that you’d rather give our daughter food poisoning? For god’s sake, Damien, I left her with you for one day. One. Day.”
Damien clenched his jaw and Pauline looked horrified at my outburst. I couldn’t find it in me to care.
I went to sit by Bonnie’s side. Locks of hair were stuck to her forehead with sweat. I brushed them aside and held her hand.
“Everything is going to be alright, honey.” I told her softly.
She stirred in a fitful sleep. Seeing her suffer without being able to do anything was torture.
Pauline cleared her throat behind me.
I turned to see her eyes full of blame boring into me.
“Celeste, your behaviour is abhorrent.” Her voice was as sharp as a blade. “How can you call yourself a mother when you refuse to take care of your own daughter?.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Pauline. I take excellent care of my daughter.”
She scoffed. “If that were the case, she wouldn’t be in the hospital now.”
I was tired of being blamed and put down by Damien and his mother. I put up with it for five years. But that ended today.
I left Bonnie’s side and walked right up to Pauline. She took a slight step back.
My voice dropped dangerously low.
“Maybe if you taught your son how to cook, my daughter wouldn’t be in the hospital right now.”
Pauline’s mouth hung open.
“Celeste,” Damien stepped between us, “You’re missing the big picture.”
I put some space between us.
“Which is?” I asked.
“This happened because you left home. I hope you’ll see that my mother is right and change your mind about the divorce.”
Did he expect me to turn a blind eye while he had an affair?
He was unbelievable.
“Why would I ever do that?”
“Think about our reputations, Celeste. What will people say when they find out we’re divorced?” His gaze landed on Bonnie. “Will you force our daughter to grow up in a broken home?”
He made it sound like I was pushing for a divorce for no reason.
“Did you forget about your affair?” I asked, seething.
Pauline’s pencil drawn eyebrows shot into her hairline.
“Damien, how could you?” She admonished her son.
Before he could respond, I continued.
“You were the one who broke our home. So I’ll be going forward with the divorce and taking custody of our daughter.”
Damien chuckled.
“Let’s see if my daughter even wants to live with you.”
He walked over to Bonnie and gently shook her awake. I stood on the other side of the bed with my heart in my throat.
“Bon-Bon, who do you want to be with? Mommy or Daddy?”
Bab terbaru
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Five Hundred and Thirty
Celeste’s POVThe next morning, I drove to my mother’s house with Molly humming softly in the back seat, her legs swinging as she watched the city slide past the window. There was something grounding about the routine of it, packing snacks, reminding her to buckle her seatbelt, listening to her narrate clouds like they were characters in a story only she could see.After the night with Ryan, after all the words we hadn’t had time to finish saying, I felt… steadier. Not healed. Not resolved. But less like I was actively coming apart.Ryan had left too soon. Work, obligations, the invisible leash his father still held tight around his wrist. We’d stood in the doorway of my office like two people afraid to say goodbye too honestly. He’d kissed my forehead, promised we’d talk properly soon. I believed him. Or maybe I needed to.Claire opened the door before I even knocked, her smile warm and immediate.“There’s my favorite people,” she said, crouching to Molly’s height. “And my second fav
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Five Hundred and Twenty-Nine
Celeste’s POVI was still at the office long after the building had gone quiet.Rosemary Atelier at night felt different. The overhead lights above the main studio were dimmed, leaving only the lamps over my worktable on. Sketches were spread out in front of me, winter motifs half-finished, lines too sharp, stones set too aggressively. I knew they were wrong, but I hadn’t had the energy to fix them yet.I heard the elevator before I saw him.The doors opened softly, cautiously, as if whoever stepped out didn’t want to be noticed. I didn’t look up right away. People didn’t usually come up here this late unless they were security or Grace, and neither of them moved like that.Then I caught the familiar weight of his presence. The way the air shifted.Ryan was bundled up like a criminal in a bad movie, dark coat zipped all the way up, scarf pulled high, baseball cap low over his eyes. He looked absurd and devastating at the same time.“Jesus,” I said quietly. “Do you think you’re being hu
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Five Hundred and Twenty-Eight
Celeste’s POVI arrived at the courthouse with a steadiness that surprised me.There was no tremor in my hands as I passed through security, no spike of adrenaline when I heard Vanessa’s name murmured by reporters clustered near the steps. I had imagined this day a hundred different ways, me furious, shaking, vindictive; me unraveling; me wanting to flee at the first glimpse of her face. None of that happened.Instead, I felt… distant. As if the version of myself who had been hurt by Vanessa was standing a few feet behind me, watching quietly, no longer in control.Jenny walked beside me, her shoulder brushing mine every so often. She wore a simple navy dress, her hair pulled back neatly, her expression composed but alert.She hadn’t said much since we arrived, but her presence grounded me. It mattered that she was here, not as my employee, not as someone I was protecting, but as someone who had survived the same storm.We took our seats in the gallery. The courtroom smelled faintly of
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Five Hundred and Twenty-Seven
Celeste’s POVVanessa’s sentencing day was tomorrow.The thought settled into me slowly, like something heavy being placed on my chest, not crushing, but impossible to ignore. I sat alone in my office long after most of Rosemary Atelier had emptied out, the city lights outside the windows blurred into soft halos by the rain.I had known this day was coming for months. Depositions, evidence, closed-door meetings with lawyers who spoke in measured tones as if lives were not being dismantled sentence by sentence.Tomorrow, it would end.I surprised myself by deciding to attend.I didn’t announce it. I didn’t dramatize it in my head. I simply closed my laptop, stood up, and knew, with a clarity that felt almost eerie, that I needed to be there. Not for revenge. Not even for closure, if I was honest.But because Vanessa Abrams had carved herself into too many chapters of my life for me to let the final one be told without me in the room.I was locking up when Jenny’s voice floated down the
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Five Hundred and Twenty-Six
Celeste’s POVRyan called three times before noon.I watched the screen light up on my desk, his name blooming there like a bruise I refused to press. I didn’t pick up. I didn’t decline either. I let it ring until the sound dissolved into the hum of the studio, into the clink of metal and the low murmur of voices beyond the glass walls of my office.Ignoring him felt childish. Necessary, but childish all the same. I told myself I needed space. That if I heard his voice, steady, controlled, probably apologetic in that careful way of his, I would fold. Or worse, I would say something sharp enough to lodge between us forever.I turned back to my sketchpad instead.The Beaumont winter collection deadline loomed like a storm cloud, and normally that kind of pressure grounded me. Deadlines had always been my refuge. Work was the one place where I could translate chaos into order, gold into geometry, pain into something precise and beautiful.But that morning, my pencil carved instead of glid
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Five Hundred and Twenty-Five
Celeste’s POVI should have been focused. The winter collection sketches were scattered across the table in front of me, delicate drawings of snow-dusted necklaces and frost-inspired earrings, and the fine-tipped pens were still warm with ink in my fingers.But my stomach was twisting, coiling tighter with every passing second as I scrolled through my phone.And then I saw it.I almost choked on the scone I had been trying to eat for breakfast.There it was, splashed across every tabloid I hadn’t even realized I’d opened, the kind I usually avoided like a plague. Ryan Edwards and a new lady love—Crown Luxe heir spotted in downtown brunch rendezvous with socialite.And the picture, oh God, the picture, showed him laughing, leaning into her as if the world had nothing else to offer him. She was polished, poised, perfect.Every bit of her screamed sophistication, elegance, belonging in his orbit. And there I was, sitting in my studio, a half-eaten scone on my plate, hair in a messy bun, s
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