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chapter 81

Author: muse
last update Last Updated: 2025-05-07 10:42:48

Damien POV

The days following the media explosion blurred into each other. Evelyn was back at the penthouse, but there was an invisible weight between us. The headlines didn’t let up. They called her a liar. A climber. Opportunistic. Some even dragged up her past , twisting facts into venomous clickbait.

Watching her suffer in silence set something inside me on fire.

I tried to fix what I could—called in favors, leveraged contacts—but damage like this was designed to be cruel, not logical. Her business was bleeding clients by the hour, her name poisoned by a rumor that wasn’t just malicious… it was tactical.

I met Chris at a low-key bar we used when we needed to talk without cameras in our faces.

“Who knew the truth about the engagement?” he asked after I filled him in.

“Just me, Evelyn, you… and Eric.”

Chris frowned. “Eric. Her ex?”

“Yeah,” I said, jaw tight. “At the charity Gala a month ago, he said something weird. Something like, ‘I always knew this wasn’t real.’ I didn’t think mu
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