All Chapters of He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

I woke at three thirty in the morning. The loft was still, and the silence pressed gently against the windows. Only the distant hum of the city stirred. Beneath my sheets I remained motionless, eyes open, staring into the grain of ceiling shadows. The echoes of yesterday circled slowly through my mind. I thought of legal notices. I thought of boutiques freezing orders. I felt again the anxious flutter that had lived beneath my ribs since the first cancellation. I had cried. I had accepted that fear was real. And yet, something inside me had shifted. My armor had cracked, but what it revealed was not weakness. It was a truth I had hidden even from myself. I was not just the architect of this strategy. I was its anchor. And I was afraid. But I was also awake. When I rose, I made coffee and stood by the window, watching the steam curl against the glass. My hands trembled. The night had not yet passed, but morning’s pale light began to seep in, thin and quiet. I felt hollow and alive

The room smelled faintly of citrus and wood polish, but to me it might as well have been smoke and steel. I sat at the long table, fingers curled around a closed folder marked PRIVATE, my name printed discreetly in the top corner. There were no cameras. No reporters. No flashes. This was not a spectacle. It was something quieter. Far more dangerous. It was the board’s internal audit session. And I was no longer hiding behind signatures or trust documents. I was here. Fully. Across from me sat six people. Five of them had been present when Roman pitched his vision months ago. The same vision that painted me as unstable. Unfit. Only one looked at me now without hesitation. Valerie Carson. Her eyes held something close to guarded trust. The rest were unreadable. Or unwilling to be read. Julian stood behind me, quiet and composed. I had asked him not to speak unless questioned directly. I wanted the answers to come from me. The chairperson, Laughton, leaned forward. His hair was silver,

The studio was already in motion when I stepped inside. The morning light outside was pale, almost silver, diffused through low clouds that clung to the skyline like breath on glass. Within these walls, the space pulsed with quiet movement. Simone was adjusting fabric on a mannequin near the sample rack. Marcus sat cross-legged at the far table, scrolling through boutique reports, confirming shipment statuses with meticulous rhythm. The air carried the scent of muslin, fresh paper, and lavender oil. It grounded me, as it always had. I stood at the threshold for a moment, letting it settle around me. The motion. The work. The unspoken current that carried us forward each day. It felt different this morning. Not calmer. Not louder. Just more certain. Julian stepped from the hallway holding a tablet and a sealed envelope. He said nothing as he handed it to me. I broke the seal slowly. Inside were printed summaries from our pilot distribution partner, compiled and annotated, already form

I made it back to the loft without stopping, each step ringing quietly against the polished floor like an echo of the heartbeat pulsing at the base of my throat. The hallway was still. Inside, Simone stood near the drafting table, eyes sharp, posture alert. Marcus sat with his laptop open in front of him, the screen casting a faint glow on his face. Julian stepped out from the pattern room, his sleeves rolled up, his shirt slightly wrinkled from another long day that had not yet ended. They all looked up when I entered. I was still carrying the weight of the boardroom, still hearing Roman’s voice in my ears. The door closed behind me, clicking softly. The sound felt final. Julian was the first to break the silence. “You showed them everything. Your face. Your proof,” he said, his voice softer than usual. It carried the tension of someone who had waited too long for a single moment to pass. I didn’t respond right away. My fingers still gripped the folder like it was armor. Simone st

The morning light filtered in like smoke. It crept across the floor of the loft in long streaks, soft but restless. I stood at the drafting table, fingertips pressed lightly to the edge of the wood, eyes fixed on a bolt of fabric that refused to quiet my mind. Something in the air felt different. Not louder. Not heavier. Just sharpened.Roman had not responded to the board’s formal notification. Alessia’s office had gone dark overnight, her assistant issuing a vague statement about a personal health leave. The timing was suspect. The silence, strategic. And still, it would be foolish to assume surrender.Julian entered without speaking, his phone in hand. He crossed the studio in three strides and stopped beside me. His screen was lit, a thread of messages scrolling in grey.“They’re circling,” he said. “One of the boutique investors received a direct call from Alessia. She’s pitching an internal restoration plan. She’s framing it as damage control.”I turned away from the fabric. “Sh