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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.
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 Five
Celeste's POV I followed his every move, until he walked past me into the long hallway. After which, I slowly moved to the guest suite, a sanctuary carved out of cold stone and expensive silk. The door groaned softly as I pushed it open, the weight of the white lace gown tra
Unwanted Bride Four
Celeste's POV With a shaky scrawl, the deal was done. The air in the ballroom felt thin as Damien stepped toward the center of the stage. He didn't need a microphone, his voice had a way of cutting through the noise like a serrated blade. He adjusted his cufflinks,
Unwanted Bride Two
Celeste's POV I turned and walked out before he could respond. I didn't head back to the maid’s quarters, I headed toward the grand ballroom. The air in the grand ballroom smelled like expensive perfume and old lies. I stood in a corner, my back against the cold marble wal
Unwanted Bride One
Celeste’s POVThe 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 lob
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