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Chapter One Hundred and Ninety-Six
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2025-10-30 10:17:34
Latest chapter
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Seven
Celeste’s POVThe tablet rested against a stack of design books on my kitchen counter, propped at just the right angle so Molly could see the screen clearly.Vivian’s face flickered into focus a second later, Belgium light behind her, pale and elegant, her hair pulled back in that effortless way that always made me think she had been born knowing how to exist in rooms I still sometimes felt I had to earn.“Molly!” Vivian exclaimed.Molly squealed and climbed onto the stool, chin barely clearing the counter. “Mama Celeste! It’s Mommy!”Vivian laughed softly. “Hi, sweetheart. You look bigger every time I see you.”“I’m six and a half now,” Molly said very seriously. “And I lost two teeth.”Vivian leaned closer to the screen, delight warming her eyes. “Two? Already? I missed that.”Molly launched into an enthusiastic explanation involving apples, a playground bar, and a friend named Leo who apparently screamed louder than she did. I stayed just out of frame, wiping my hands on a towel, li
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Six
Celeste’s POVI woke up lighter than I had in days.Ryan’s arm had been draped across my waist when the morning light crept in, his breathing slow and even against my shoulder. We’d made love sometime after midnight, quietly, tenderly, as if neither of us wanted to spook the fragile peace we’d found, and then fallen asleep tangled together, skin warm, hearts steadier than they’d been in weeks.I wasn’t angry at him anymore. Not really.But there was a small ache beneath the calm. A want. A need to be told. To not sit on a couch watching food go cold, wondering if I mattered enough to warrant a text.I kissed his shoulder before slipping out of bed, careful not to wake him. He looked exhausted even in sleep. That softened me.By the time I drove to my mother’s house, the city felt almost kind. I rolled the windows down, let the air move through me, let the thoughts settle into something manageable.Claire’s house smelled like cardamom and onions when I walked in, comforting, grounding.
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Five
Ryan’s POVBy the time I clocked out of Rosemary, the sun was already slipping behind the buildings, turning the glass and steel of the city into a bruise-colored reflection of my own exhaustion.I didn’t go home.I went straight to Aurora.Their head office didn’t look like a newborn company. That was the first thing anyone would get wrong about them. There was no chaos, no scramble, no provisional energy. Aurora moved like an entity that had been breathing for years, quiet, controlled, deliberate. Jewelry cases lit with museum precision.Workbenches staffed by people whose hands didn’t shake, even under scrutiny. White-gloved assistants carrying trays of stones worth more than most people’s homes.Jewelry companies always tell you who they are by how they treat their materials. Aurora treated theirs like they were already legacy.I dropped my bag beside the conference table and immediately got pulled into it, numbers, supply routes, investor calls, sketches spread across polished sto
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Four
Celeste’s POVRyan had been at Rosemary all morning, but it felt like he wasn’t really there.He moved through the atelier with the same quiet confidence he always had, greeting Rachel, nodding at the bench jewelers, answering questions that came his way, but his attention was fractured.His phone was never far from his hand. His gaze drifted when conversations ran longer than a few seconds.Once, I watched him stop mid-step, jaw tightening as he read something on the screen before tucking the device away and continuing on as if nothing had happened.I recognized that look.It was the same one he’d worn during the worst of Maximilian’s threats. The same one he wore when he was holding too many things alone.I wasn’t much better.Aurora had flooded my inbox overnight, introductions, onboarding packets, proposed timelines, new hires being fast-tracked with efficiency that bordered on frightening.People I’d never met were suddenly CC’d on threads that touched the core of Rosemary’s opera
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Three
Ryan’s POVThe work doesn’t look heroic from the outside.There’s no shouting. No dramatic ultimatums. No slammed doors or raised voices, at least not where anyone can see.It’s phone calls taken in stairwells, messages sent through encrypted apps, meetings held under the guise of something else entirely. Its names are spoken carefully, leverage applied invisibly, pressure adjusted by millimeters rather than force.This is how wars are actually fought.Behind the scenes, I spend days untangling what has knotted so neatly.I don’t know who did this, but before I get to the end of it, I needed to make sure Rosemary was on its feet again.Someone had placed supplier blockades disguised as “compliance reviews.”Media narratives seeded through third-party firms that never officially touch her name. Delays blamed on weather, customs, ethics boards, sudden shifts in regulation.She’s good. I’ll give her that.But she’s also predictable.The first thing I do is remove fear. Not with threats, t
No Way to Win Me Back Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Two
Vanessa’s POVThe silence from Maximilian is worse than his anger ever was.I can work around fury. I can soothe it, redirect it, weaponize it if I have to. Anger burns hot and fast. It leaves residue, yes, but it’s predictable.This silence is surgical.At Crown Luxe, doors don’t close in my face. They simply stop opening. Meetings I once attended by default are suddenly “rescheduled.” Emails that used to get immediate replies now receive acknowledgments, brief, bloodless, signed by assistants instead of him.Maximilian Edwards no longer shields me.He observes me.From a distance.And that terrifies me more than I’m willing to admit.I sit in my office, posture immaculate, legs crossed just so, scanning quarterly reports I already know by heart. It’s not the numbers that bother me. It’s the annotations. The compliance flags. The quiet internal audits that weren’t there before.Protective silence has been replaced by scrutiny.I can feel it in the way Maximilian’s jaw tightens when my
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