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2026-04-13 19:07:33Celeste’s POV
The gold-plated revolving doors of the Harrington Flagship Hotel spun with a rhythmic whoosh, announcing the arrival of the elite. I didn't need to look up to know who it was, because I could smell the expensive, cloying scent of Chanel No. 5 from across the lobby.
I kept my head down, my hands gripped tightly around the handle of a gray mop. The marble floor beneath me had a muddy footprint from a hurried guest, and I cleaned it with steady, repeated movements. My black maid’s uniform was stiff and uncomfortable, and my white apron had a bleach stain on it. In this lobby, I felt invisible like a ghost.
"Oh, look, Ava. The trash is out early today."
The voice was high, sharp, and dripping with fake sweetness. I stopped scrubbing.
Vivienne Harrington stood a few steps away, wearing a silk dress that cost more than I would earn in a year of cleaning these floors. Beside her was Ava, her best friend, already holding up her phone like she was filming a documentary about something dirty and unpleasant.
"Is that a new stain on your dress, Celeste? Or is that just your personality leaking out?" Vivienne laughed, the sound echoing off the high ceilings.
I slowly straightened my back. My muscles ached, and my palms were calloused, but I didn't look down. I looked Vivienne straight in her perfectly made-up eyes.
"It’s bleach, Vivienne… It’s used to clean up filth. You should try some, it might help with that mouth of yours."
Ava gasped, her jaw dropping.
Vivienne’s smile faltered for a split second before she regained her composure. She stepped closer, her expensive heels clicking aggressively on the wet marble. "You should watch your tone, don't you know what today is? Or are you too busy sniffing floor wax to hear the news? Damien Chen is coming. And he’s coming for me."
She held up her left hand, though it was bare of a ring. "The merger. The marriage. The contract. I’m about to become the most powerful woman in the country while you spend the rest of your life cleaning the toilets I use."
I leaned against the mop handle, a small, cold smile touching my lips. "Is that what Dad told you? That you’re a prize?"
"I am the prize," Vivienne snapped.
"No," I countered, my voice dropping to a whisper that felt like a blade. "You’re a price tag. You’re the collateral for a debt Dad is too stupid to pay. Everyone in the staff room knows the truth, Vivienne. The Harrington hotels are bleeding money. The investments in the south failed. The bank is circling. You aren't getting married because you’re beautiful… you’re getting married because the family is broke and Damien Chen is the only man with a big enough check to keep you from being homeless."
Vivienne’s face turned a violent shade of red. "You lie! We are the Harringtons!"
"We are a sinking ship," I said, stepping toward her. I was taller than her, and without her heels, she would have looked small. "And you? You’re just the piece of wood Dad is throwing to the shark so he doesn't get eaten first. Tell me, does Damien Chen even know your name? Or did he just ask for the girl with the biggest dowry and the smallest brain?"
Ava looked like she wanted to run away. Vivienne was trembling, her hands balled into fists. "I’m going to have you fired for this! I’ll tell Mom!"
"Go ahead," I shrugged, turning back to my mop. "But then who would clean the lobby for the signing ceremony tonight? You? Ava? I don't think your manicures could handle the soap."
Vivienne let out a frustrated scream, spun on her heel, and marched toward the elevators. I watched her go, my heart thumping hard against my ribs. I had won this round, but the weight of the truth felt heavier than the mop.
The rest of the afternoon was a nightmare. Margaret, my stepmother, was in a frantic state of rage. She found me in the laundry room and piled ten more tasks onto my list.
"The library must be polished. The crystal glasses must be hand washed. The silver trays must shine like the sun!" she screamed, her face pale with stress. "If one thing is out of place when Mr. Chen arrives, I will personally throw you into the street, Celeste. Do you understand?"
"I understand," I said, keeping my eyes on the floor.
I worked until my fingers were raw. I polished the dark wood of the library where the signing would take place, I moved heavy furniture, and scrubbed the baseboards. I was the silent engine making sure the Harrington ‘perfection’ was ready for the Executioner.
By 6:00 PM, the hotel was humming with tension. The board members were arriving. The guards were stationed at the doors. I was sent to the executive floor to deliver a tray of black coffee to my father’s private study.
The hallway was quiet, the thick carpet muffling my footsteps. As I approached the door of the study, I heard a voice. It was my father, Howard. He sounded tired, but there was a sharp edge of anger in his tone.
The door was slightly opened. I stopped, the tray of coffee trembling in my hands.
"I don't care about the girl, Margaret!" Howard’s voice boomed from inside.
I froze, my breath caught in my throat.
"She is a constant reminder of the biggest mistake of my life," Howard continued. I could hear the clink of a glass… he was drinking. "Every time I see her face, I see Rose. I see that back-alley apartment. I see the scandal that almost ruined me years ago."
"We should have sent her away when the mother died," Margaret’s voice hissed. She was in there with him. "Keeping her here as a maid was your idea of charity, Howard. Now she’s a liability."
"I regret ever getting that woman pregnant," my father said, and his words felt like a physical blow to my chest. "I regret that Celeste was ever born. She is a shadow on my name. She is a servant, and that is all she will ever be… I’m ashamed to even breathe the same air as her."
The tray in my hands tilted. A spoon slid across the silver surface with a loud clink.
I couldn't stop myself, I pushed the door open.
My father was standing by the window, a glass of scotch in his hand. Margaret was sitting in the leather chair, her eyes sharp and cold. They both froze when they saw me.
The silence in the room was suffocating. My father didn't look guilty, he looked annoyed. He looked at me with the same disgust he would show a cockroach on his desk.
"Your coffee, sir," I whispered. My voice didn't sound like mine, It was hollow.
I stepped forward and set the tray on the desk. My hands didn't shake this time, the pain had turned into something else… something cold and hard as diamond.
"I heard you," I said, looking him directly in the eye.
Howard straightened his tie, his face hardening. "Then you heard the truth, Celeste. Don't act surprised. You’ve always known what you are to this family."
"I know exactly what I am," I mumbled.
I turned and walked out before he could respond. I didn't head back to the maid’s quarters, I headed toward the ballroom.
In my pocket, I felt the cold metal of a pendant… my mother’s pendant. I had found it in a box of trash Margaret had thrown out years ago.
The signing ceremony was about to begin. The Harringtons thought they were selling Vivienne to save themselves, they had no idea that the mistake they were so ashamed of was about to become the person who decided whether they lived or died.
Bab terbaru
Unwanted Bride One Hundred and Fifty-One(Book Three)
The Void Left BehindThe winter in Oakhaven had settled into a rhythm of deep, meditative silence, but as the first thaw of early spring began to turn the snow into rivulets of grey slush, the outside world started to seep back in. It didn’t arrive with the clamor of the press or the knock of a process server, but with a series of subtle, unsettling anomalies that only someone as trained as Celeste could detect. It began with the global shipping manifests—not the illicit, shadow-registry manifests they had once controlled, but the legitimate, public-facing data streams that tracked the pulse of international commerce.Celeste sat at her desk, the notebook from her own life pushed aside in favor of a tablet she had long ago stripped of all tracking software. She was monitoring the flow of steel, medical supplies, and high-tech components through the Mediterranean and the South China Sea. She had expect
Unwanted Bride One Hundred and Fifty
The Unwritten LifeThe first winter in Oakhaven arrived with a sudden, beautiful intensity, covering the hills in a blanket of pristine, white snow that muffled the world. The cottage was warm, the fireplace crackling with the heat of the oak logs they had cut themselves, the scent of pine and woodsmoke permeating the air. It was a life of simple, tangible things: the weight of a book in her hands, the smell of fresh bread, the quiet rhythm of their daily life. The past was a fading memory, a story that belonged to someone else, a person who had walked a different path through a different world.Celeste sat at the small, oak desk by the window, a blank notebook before her. She wasn't writing a ledger. She wasn't drafting a charter or a list of assets. She was writing the start of a story—the story of a woman who had been a pawn, who had become a queen, and who had eventually decided that the game wasn't worth pl
Unwanted Bride One Hundred and Forty-Nine
149: The Final AuditThe reaction to the list was instantaneous and total. Within forty-eight hours, the news cycles were dominated by the new round of investigations, the "Shadow Registry" becoming the rallying cry for a global reform movement. Celeste and Damien watched the reports on the small, grainy television in their living room, hearing their own principles being echoed by prosecutors and journalists who were now equipped with the tools they had left behind. The transition was no longer a personal crusade—it was a societal shift, a cleansing fire that was sweeping through the institutions they had spent their lives dismantling.They saw the raids, the arrests, and the public dismantling of the final vestiges of the old order. The people on the list, the ones who had thought themselves immune to the consequences of their trade, were being systematically brought into the light. It was a process of
Unwanted Bride One Hundred and Forty-Eight
The UnmaskingThe arrival of the letter, months later, was an anomaly that shattered the quiet. It was tucked into the rural mailbox at the end of the lane, a heavy cream envelope with no return address, stamped with a postmark from a city three states away. Celeste found it while collecting the mail, her hands instinctively tightening around the thick paper. It felt like a relic from the old world—a cold, calculated intrusion into the sanctuary they had built. She carried it inside, her heart rate accelerating, the old, familiar instinct to scan for traps and analyze threats surfacing with a sharpness that surprised her. It was a muscle memory she hadn't realized was still so deeply embedded.She waited for Damien to come in from the woods before opening it. When he arrived, he found her sitting at the kitchen table, the envelope sitting like a venomous insect in the center of the wood grain. He didn't ask where it c
Unwanted Bride One Hundred and Forty-Seven
The Echoes of the PastLife in Oakhaven was not entirely devoid of shadows, though they were no longer the creeping, suffocating shadows of the corporate underworld. Even in a town that moved at the speed of the seasons, the past had a way of bleeding through the cracks of the present. One rainy Tuesday, while clearing out the kitchen, Celeste found a small, dusty box in the back of a cupboard—a collection of letters, receipts, and photographs that the previous tenants had left behind. Among them was an old newspaper clipping, yellowed, brittle, and stained with the passage of time, dated from thirty years ago. It was an announcement of the Harrington-Chen merger, featuring a stark, high-contrast photograph of her father and Damien’s father standing on the docks, their faces partially obscured by the harsh, unnatural shadows of the flashbulbs.She stared at the image, feeling a cold, familiar prickle of uneas
Unwanted Bride One Hundred and Forty-Six
The Uncharted RoadThe town of Oakhaven was exactly as it had been described: a forgotten knot of roads buried in the rolling, verdant hills, miles from the nearest international port and light-years away from the influence of global shipping cartels. It was a place where time didn't seem to be governed by the frantic ticking of a ledger or the arbitrary shifts in global trade, but by the slow, steady, and immutable rhythm of the seasons. Celeste and Damien arrived at dusk, the sky bruised with deep shades of violet and indigo. The cottage they had leased was a structure of stone and timber, nestled at the edge of a wood that hummed with the sound of crickets and the persistent, soothing rustle of wind through oak leaves. It felt like a different planet, a sanctuary where the air was sweet and the silence was heavy with the absence of demand.For the first few days, the transition was jarring, almost physically painful
Unwanted Bride Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Viper’s Second SkinThe rain turned from a drizzle into a torrential downpour, blurring the world into shades of slate and charcoal. I stood frozen, the cold water soaking through my blue silk dress, making it feel like a heavy, sodden weight. Vivienne stood ten feet away, the
Unwanted Bride Twelve
CHAPTER TWELVE: The Architect of AgonyThe red numbers on the wall bled into the darkness. 00:58.The silence of the medical suite was replaced by the high-pitched whine of a building-wide alarm. My head was spinning—brother? Son? The words felt like physical blows, designed to shatter my mind befo
Unwanted Bride Eleven
Chapter Eleven:The King of ShadowsThe tension in the library was so thick it felt like physical pressure against my lungs. Damien’s hand was a crushing weight on mine, his knuckles white, his pulse jumping where our skin met. I could feel the tremor in his fingers—not from fear, but from a restrai
Unwanted Bride Nine
CHAPTER NINEThe Ghost of Wives PastThe air in the glass-walled room curdled. The red-haired woman stood there like a splash of blood against the pale blue decor, her presence an open wound in the middle of our perfect luncheon. I felt the heat of the socialites' stares—they weren't looking at me
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