All Chapters of In the Name of Ambition: Chapter 171 - Chapter 180

PietraWork at the diner had been more exhausting than I’d expected, and all I wanted when I got home was a hot shower and a few minutes of silence."Finally!" Andressa’s excited voice made me jump.She was sitting on the couch, grinning so wide it took up half her face, but she quickly sprang up, her eyes sparkling. What caught my attention, though, was her outfit.Black dress pants. A white button-up blouse. The same one she’d worn to her last job interview before her surgery. My stomach twisted slightly."You went out?" I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral, but she caught the edge in it.Andressa rushed over and hugged me tightly."I’m so happy, Pietra! So, so happy!"My mind immediately raced through possibilities, good and bad."Did you go to a job interview?" I asked, my voice firmer than I’d intended. "Why didn’t you tell me?"She took my hands, as if trying to soothe the tension building inside me."Please don’t be mad. I just wanted to surprise you."She adjusted herself e

PietraI had no idea what to expect when I knocked on Anton’s office door. My heart was pounding with a mix of anxiety, guilt, and... hope. The secretary let me in without hesitation, and when I saw Anton look up at me that way—as if he still loved me, despite everything-my impulse to run was drowned by a calm certainty: I needed to be there.When I told him why I’d come, I noticed—for just a split second—that his face faltered. It wasn’t a smile. It wasn’t a surprise. It was… a contained disappointment. As if he’d rather I’d never found out.And it was in that exact moment that everything made sense to me.He hadn’t done it to impress me. It wasn’t for show. Not a dramatic gesture to grab my attention. He did it because

Anneliese My grandfather’s name hit me like a punch to the chest.Leonel Baumann.The last person in the world I wanted to disappoint, and, ironically, the one I’d been disappointing the most these past few years. He raised me like a princess, but I turned into the hurricane that leaves wreckage everywhere I go."Is he okay?" I asked, my throat dry, still wrapped in nothing but the hotel sheet.Ettore looked at me with the expression of a man who was tired of playing babysitter."He hasn’t slept in two days. Thinks you were kidnapped. Or that you jumped off a bridge. You didn’t even answer your phone since you set foot in this city with your l

KimberlyAfter dinner, I collapsed onto the bed with a long sigh, like I could leave the weight of the world tangled in the sheets. I still didn’t know how to process everything that had happened at the end of the day. The reporters. The flashes. The yelling. Not even the warmth in Axel’s eyes when he found me had been enough to fully shake the tension from my body. Or maybe... I was just lying to myself.As if my thoughts had summoned him, there was a soft knock on the door before Axel walked in. Barefoot, sleeves rolled up, his shirt slightly wrinkled—the perfect picture of elegant chaos. “You feeling any better?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.I nodded vaguely, avoiding his eyes. He knew this was the kind of thing that would gnaw at me for days. “Tomorrow, it’s going to be everywhere, Kimberly. Every site. Every headline. There’s no erasing it. But...” His voice grew firmer as he raked a hand through his hair. “There is a way to control it. And that’s where what I wan

KimberlyThe first thing I felt when I opened my eyes was the emptiness beside me. The space where Axel should have been was vacant, only the impression of his body on the mattress proving he had slept there. A tightness in my chest reminded me of last night—his nightmares, the name he shouted in the dark, the distance that grew between us afterward. I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes as I tried to sort through the chaos in my head. Morning sunlight filtered gently through the curtains, bathing the room in a golden glow that seemed to mock the storm inside me. What am I doing here? Axel had pul