เข้าสู่ระบบChapter Eighty-EightWith those words, she turned on her heels and scurried towards the door.“Celeste.”Ethan’s hand closed around her wrist before she had taken three steps. Celeste stopped, her chest heaving with emotions.She felt Ethan’s grip on her soft flesh, firm but not rough, the grip of a man who did not want her to leave and was not certain he could explain why.Her other hand gripped the silky material of her nightdress tightly,“I won’t make a scene,” she said through gritted teeth, “ I’ll be gone by morning. You won’t even have to—”“Celeste, stop!” Ethan uttered with a frustrated tone, “Why are you doing this?”Celeste let herself be turned back around. She let her eyes be wet. She looked up at him with the expression of a woman at the edge of something, and it was close enough to true that it cost her very little to hold.“Ethan Langford, how could you ask me that?” She said in a tight voice, her throat burning with undyed tears.She could not believe he was asking her
Chapter Eighty-SevenThe light under Ethan’s study door was the thin, concentrated kind that meant he had been sitting in the same position for hours. The kind of light that did not invite company.Celeste stood outside the door, and adjusted the straps of her flimsy nightdress. The material was so thin that it left nothing to the imagination. She took a deep breath and knocked tentatively on the heavy oak door..Inside, Ethan paused at the sound. He frowned, wondering who on earth pulled be awake by that time in the house, and even more still had the guts to come to his study.He somehow had an inkling of who would be at the door, and that was why he’d paused.He really did not need any disturbance that night,The knock came again this time, more rapt and urgent. Ethan sighed, and rubbed his brow.“Come in.”Celeste opened the door and stepped inside.The study was the most honest room in the Langford estate, she had always thought. It did not perform wealth the way the formal rooms
Chapter Eighty-SixLater that night, Celeste laid awake long after the house went quiet.She stared up at the ceiling of the room, sighing heavily. Sometimes she tossed and turned, her head whirling with unsettling thoughts.The room she was occupying in the Langford mansion was beautiful. It had been redecorated at her insistence when she’d moved into the house newly.Back then, Aurora had still been in the house but Ethan had done everything she’d asked for. She was only supposed to stay in the house for a short while, after Aurora had supposedly made her twist her ankle, but she’d demanded a full redecoration when she’d arrived.She knew the house had been decorated according to Aurora’s taste. That was why she had extreme pleasure in disseminating whatever was there.She’d changed everything; the colors, the furniture, the view over the east garden. Celeste had made it clear, without saying it directly, that the room was a statement of intention. Her presence in this wing of the
Chapter Eighty-EightThat feeling of safety did not last long however.Later that week, Celeste and the rest could finally return to home. Vera and Bella went along with them to meet Ethan as B’s discuss his next line of action.By the time they had all gathered in the main dining room, Vera and Bella had moved from the relief of Celeste’s perceived advantages to the familiar, more satisfying territory of grievance.Aurora was the easier target.Aurora was always the easier target.“There’s really no need to continue to dwell on that vicious woman any longer. She was just a gold digger,” Vera said, with a haughty little sniff, her nose head high.Her voice carried the particular satisfaction of a conclusion she had arrived at long ago and enjoyed revisiting. “That’s all she ever was. Latching on to the Vaughn family the moment she was out of this one. Did I not say from the beginning? A woman like that, with nothing to her name, with no family, no breeding, no—”“Enough.”Ethan’s voic
Chapter Eighty-SevenThe night Ethan had left his family at the Winter Ice Gala, the Langford convoy had returned home to the family estate in a state that could charitably be described as unsettled.Vera had not spoken for the first fifteen minutes of the drive, which anyone who knew Vera Langford understood was a form of pressure in itself.Bella had filled the silence with increasingly agitated murmuring that passed for thought. Celeste had sat with her hands folded and her expression neutral, watching the city slip past the window.Her entire night had been ruined. Tonight would have been one of those days, where she would have solidified her presence in Ethan’s life to the public, and now it was all in shambles.Ethan had become more displeased with her, and she got to become aware of the very disturbing fact of Aurora being involved with the Vaughn family.Her well manicured nails dug into the fine leather of the car seats in anger.“Aurora, I will show you.”Ethan had called a
Chapter Eighty-Six“I know things have changed,” Aurora finally continued, “Six years is not nothing. The whole shape of who matters and why will have shifted. Mentors retire. Rivalries resolve or deepen. The younger generation starts defining what the field looks at next.” She turned her cup once in her hands. “I’m not worried about any of that.”Caspian watched her.“You’re sure.” He asked carefully,“I know what I’m worth, come on” she said.There was no arrogance in it. It was delivered the way a person stated a measurement, plainly and without decoration. She was also a little miffed that Caspian would think she would be uncomfortable with it.She knew he meant well, however, so she did not push it, “I know what I was before I left and I know what I’ve built since. The six years weren’t lost time.” She uttered confidently, flipping her light colored hair over her shoulder, “They were different times. And I suspect, when the work becomes more visible, people will understand that.”
Chapter Twenty-FourCeleste stayed behind while Ethan stormed out of the room.As soon as the door closed behind Ethan’s form, Celeste dropped her mask.Her face which was all pleasant earlier, with an innocent expression, turned hard with a sly smile.“What’s wrong?” Aurora asked, her lips curved
Chapter TwentyCeleste’s head whipped to the side with the slap, and she stumbled hard, almost crashing to the floor.“Aurora!” Ethan yelled from his position on the bed. In one swift movement, he was out of bed and was by their side in an heart beat, “Are you out of your mind?! How dare you hit he
Chapter Seventeen“Who’s going to take care of me for getting hurt?” Aurora uttered in a clear voice, while giving Ethan a deadly glare. She pointed to her face, “You hit me , remember?”Ethan grimaced, shifting uncomfortably under the harsh glare of Aurora’s criticism. Another wave of guilt hit hi
Chapter NineThere was a soft gasp from Lucille at those words.“Young Miss, don’t say that.” She uttered softly with a coercive smile, “Your dad is not home today and the madam is free. Let her just take you. You haven’t had your mom take you to school in ages.”All the staff knew the dynamics of







