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Three
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2026-04-13 19:17:59Celeste's POV
Damien stopped inches away from me. He was so tall I had to tilt my head back to see him. He smelled of Tom Ford Oud Wood.
"You're shaking," he murmured.
"I'm fine, sir," I whispered, my voice cracking. "Would you like a drink?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he reached out, his fingers were warm as they brushed against the skin of my wrist, his thumb pressing firmly against my pulse. He felt my heart racing, felt the fear and the fire I had spent a lifetime hiding.
"Howard," Damien called out, his eyes never leaving mine.
"Yes, Damien?" Howard hurried over, sweat beading on his forehead. "Is there a problem with the service? I’ll have her replaced immediately…"
"This girl," Damien interrupted, his voice dropping into a dangerous, sharp edge. "What is her name?"
Margaret rushed over, her face twisted in an ugly sneer. "She’s nobody, Mr. Chen. Just a girl we took in out of charity. Her name is Celeste. She’s... a distant relative’s mistake."
Damien finally turned his head to look at Margaret. The look was so cold it could have frozen the champagne in my hands.
"A mistake?" Damien asked softly. "My research team is very thorough, Margaret. They don't find mistakes, they find facts."
He turned back to the room, raising his voice so loud that it echoed off the ceiling.
"I came here for the eldest Harrington daughter," Damien announced. He reached out and took the silver tray from my hands, setting it carelessly on a nearby table. He then took my hand in his, his grip possessive and absolute. "According to the birth records at St. Jude’s Hospital, Celeste Harrington was born on the twelfth of May. Vivienne was born in November of the same year."
The ballroom went deathly silent, you could hear the frantic ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall.
"No," Margaret gasped. "That’s not... she isn't..."
"She is the eldest," Damien said, his dark eyes boring into my father’s. "And per the contract you signed an hour ago, she is my bride."
He turned to me, his face a mask of cold, beautiful ruthlessness. He leaned down, his lips brushing my ear so only I could hear his words.
"Better being my bride than living in an environment where you aren't accepted," he whispered.
He pulled back, his hand tightening on mine as he looked at my father.
"Howard, get the girl a chair," Damien commanded, his voice like a crack of a whip. "From this moment on, your servant owns the roof over your head."
I looked at my father, who was now white as a sheet, and then at Vivienne, who was shaking with a rage she couldn't hide, my heart thumping loudly in my chest.
My father didn’t move at first, he just stood there with his mouth hanging open like a fish out of water. The silence in the ballroom was so heavy I could barely breathe, but Damien didn't let go of my hand, his grip was like an iron shackle that told everyone I belonged to him now.
"I said," Damien repeated, his voice dropping to a low dangerous growl, "get her a chair. Or do I need to buy this entire hotel floor right now to make you listen?"
Howard scrambled, nearly tripping over his own feet as he pulled a soft leather chair from the head table. I sat down, my cheap maid’s uniform feeling like sandpaper against the expensive fabric. Margaret looked like she wanted to vomit, and Vivienne was vibrating with a rage so hot I thought her silk dress might catch fire.
"This is a mistake, Damien," Margaret hissed, her voice trembling. "She doesn't know how to speak, she doesn't know how to eat, she is—"
"She is my wife," Damien cut her off, his eyes flashing with a dangerous light. "And since you’ve treated her like a servant for years, you can spend the next hour making up for it. Howard, Margaret… go. Get her ready. I want the world to see the true Harrington heir."
“WHAT?!’
“Yes… you heard me.”
Whispers, murmurs and gossips flooded the ballroom.
The next two hours were a blur of humiliation for them and a fever dream for me. Howard was forced to lead me to the grand suite, acting like a doting father while the cameras of the press, who had been invited for Vivienne, flashed in our faces. He had to keep a fake smile on his face while he told reporters, "We’ve kept Celeste private to protect her, but she is the light of our lives now."
I wanted to laugh in his face, but I kept my mask on.
Margaret and a team of stylists were forced to strip me of my apron. They scrubbed the smell of bleach from my skin and dressed me in a gown that cost more than the house I grew up in. It was a deep, blood-red silk that clung to my body like a second skin.
They placed diamonds around my neck… Harrington family heirlooms Vivienne had once been promised. Margaret’s fingers trembled as she secured the clasp, but her gaze in the mirror was anything but unsteady. It burned into mine, cold, deliberate, and full of unspoken hatred.
"You think you've won," she whispered in my ear. "But he will throw you away once he’s bored."
"He might," I whispered back, looking at my reflection… a girl I didn't recognize. “But by then, I’ll have paid you back for all the mistreatment you’ve shown me.”
When I walked back into the ballroom, the gasps were audible. I wasn't the girl with the mop anymore, I was a queen standing next to the Executioner.
Damien stepped forward, his eyes scanning me from head to toe. For a second, just a second, the coldness in his gaze flickered into something else… something hungry. He took a pen from his breast pocket and turned to the massive table where the merger contract lay.
"Sign it, Howard," Damien commanded.
My father’s hand shook so much the pen rattled against the paper. He was signing away his pride, his secrets, and his daughter all at once. But he had no choice. With a shaky scrawl, the deal was done.
Latest chapter
Unwanted Bride Twenty-Five
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: The Island of Lost SoulsThe roar of the speedboat faded into the rhythmic thrash of the Caribbean Sea, leaving the villa in a suffocating silence. Damien stayed by the shattered window, his silhouette dark against the moonlight like a gargoyle."She’s heading for the North Sound," he said, lowering his scope. "There’s a private marina in the mangroves. If she reaches the Architect’s transport, she vanishes into the radar shadows of the reef."I helped Howard to a chair, my hands shaking. He looked at me, and the hollow fog in his eyes finally lifted. He reached out, his thumb brushing a smudge of ash from my cheek."I let them take you," he whispered. "I spent twenty years convincing myself you were a dream I had during the war.""I wasn't a dream, Dad," I said, leaning my forehead against his knee. "I was the girl who remembered your voice every time the attic got too cold.""We don't have time for the past," Damien interrupted. He wasn't being cruel; he was bei
Unwanted Bride Twenty Four
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: The Mirror’s LieThe words hit me harder than the blast at the Chen Tower. To hear my own father—the man who was supposed to be my sanctuary—dismiss me as a mercenary was a cruelty I hadn't prepared for. He looked at me with a mixture of pity and suspicion, his protective arm draped around Vivienne."I’m not a mercenary, Howard," I said, my voice trembling despite my effort to keep it steady. "Look at me. Really look at me.""Don't listen to her, Dad," Vivienne hissed, her eyes darting toward the laptop on the table. the transfer bar was at ninety percent. "She’s a master of manipulation. Silas trained her to mimic the family. He wanted a backup heir in case I didn't cooperate."Howard stepped forward, his eyes searching my face. For a fleeting second, I saw a spark of recognition—a shadow of a memory of a woman named Rose—but then his gaze hardened. "You have the eyes," he whispered. "But the woman I loved was kind. She wouldn't come into a home with a threat on
Unwanted Bride Twenty Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Cayman ConnectionThe photo on the screen felt like a physical blow to the stomach. The real Howard Harrington was alive. Not the mercenary with the fake wrist scar, and not the coward who had let me rot in the attic—but the man my mother had actually loved. And he was standing beside the sister who had just tried to incinerate me."She didn't save him," I whispered, my fingers trembling as I zoomed in on the grainy image. "She hijacked him."Damien leaned over my shoulder, his warmth a sharp contrast to the cold calculation in his eyes. "Vivienne didn't blow up the tower just to destroy the evidence, Celeste. She did it to create a distraction large enough to move a high-value asset out of the country. She didn't want the empire. She wanted the man who holds the keys to the Vane Estate’s offshore vaults.""But why would he be with her?" I asked, looking at Howard’s face. He looked older, gaunt, but there was a fierce protectiveness in the way he stood near V
Unwanted Bride Twenty Two
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Boardroom BloodbathThe Harrington Flagship Hotel didn’t look like a place that had survived a revolution. The gold-plated doors still spun with that rhythmic, expensive hush, and the marble floors were so polished they mirrored the anxiety on the faces of the staff. But the air was different. The "Executioner’s Wife" was dead, and the "Unwanted Daughter" had vanished.I stepped into the lobby at 11:55 AM.I wasn't wearing silk. I was wearing a structured, charcoal-gray power suit that fit like a second skin, with a white silk shirt buttoned to the throat. My hair wasn't in a maid's bun or a bride's waves; it was pulled back into a sleek, lethal ponytail. Beside me, Damien walked in a black tailored suit, his presence acting as the silent muscle to my growing storm."They're in Boardroom A," Marcus, the doorman, whispered as I passed. He didn't just open the door; he bowed."Thank you, Marcus," I said, not stopping. "Make sure the coffee they’re drinking is the
Unwanted Bride Twenty one
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Morning After the FireThe sun didn't rise over the Potomac with a sense of peace; it rose with a harsh, judgmental glare that exposed every crack in the marble and every drop of blood in the grass.I sat on the bumper of Sarah’s car, a thermal blanket draped over my obsidian-shattered dress. My father—Julian—was asleep in the backseat, his hand still twitching in his sleep as if he were trying to ward off ghosts. Damien stood a few yards away, talking to a man in a dark suit who didn't look like a fed. He looked like an asset."You're thinking about the phone call," Damien said, walking toward me. He didn't look like a billionaire anymore. He looked like a man who had been through a war and realized he liked the smell of smoke."The Architect didn't sound defeated, Damien," I said, looking at my hands. The cuts from the obsidian were starting to throb. "She sounded like she was giving me a graduation speech."Damien sat beside me, the weight of his body a grou
Unwanted Bride Twenty
CHAPTER TWENTY: The Reckoning at the PotomacThe silence in the East Wing was deafening, a sharp contrast to the chaos erupting in the ballroom behind me. The live broadcast had turned the Sterling Estate from a palace into a crime scene. President Sterling’s ivory smile had finally shattered, and the world was watching the pieces fall.I reached Damien, my hands trembling as I helped him to his feet. His tactical gear was shredded, and his breathing was shallow, but the fire in his eyes hadn't dimmed. He looked at the obsidian shards embedded in my palms—the cost of my small, violent rebellion against the terminal."You broke the broadcast loop," he rasped, leaning his weight against me. "You didn't just open the door, Celeste. You tore the roof off the whole house.""The Architect wanted to rule the ruins," I said, my voice sounding like cold stone. "I decided to make sure there was nothing left to rule."We moved toward the ballroom, the sound of the crowd rising into a panicked ro
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