Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 11 - Chapitre 18

~Marcus~I couldn’t breathe. The grand ballroom was usually a place where I commanded respect, now felt like a cage closing in on me. I stood near the exit, my body rigid, my fists clenched so tightly that my nails dug into my palms. The crystal award in Isla’s hands moments ago might as well have been a knife driven straight into my chest.That was Isla. Not a ghost. Not a memory I had buried under layers of rage and betrayal. She was here. Real. Alive. And more devastatingly beautiful than the day I had thrown her out of my life.Her emerald gown clung to her petite hourglass figure like it had been made for her. Her ivory skin glowed under the lights. Those deep brown eyes that once looked at me with desperate love now held nothing but cold indifference. And worst of all, the two little boys standing beside her, holding her hands and calling another man “Papa.” They looked exactly like me at that age. The same deep blue eyes. The same red lips. The same stubborn jawline. Were they

~Isla~The morning light spilled through the tall studio windows of our Paris penthouse, casting golden patterns across my workbench. I sat on a high stool, my sketchpad open in front of me, charcoal pencil moving across the paper with ease. New designs for the upcoming collection were taking shape, it was bolder, more intricate pieces that reflected the woman I had become. But my mind wasn’t fully on the jewelry.It had been three days since the gala in New York, and I still couldn’t shake the image of Marcus’s face when he saw me. The shock. The pain. The raw hunger in his eyes when he looked at the twins.“Mommy?”Owen’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. Both boys stood at the doorway of the studio in their matching pajamas, hair still messy from sleep. Oliver clutched his favorite stuffed lion while Owen held a drawing he had made.“Yes, my loves?” I smiled, setting the pencil down and opening my arms. They ran to me immediately, climbing onto my lap like they always did.Oliver

~Isla~Twelve days laterParis had returned to its usual rhythm, but something felt different now.I stood in the sunlit nursery, watching Owen and Oliver play with their building blocks. Their laughter filled the room, bright and innocent, but my mind kept drifting back to New York. To Marcus’s shocked face. To the way he had stared at the twins like they were ghosts from a past he couldn’t escape.“Mommy, look!” Owen called, holding up a tall tower he had built. “It’s as tall as the tall man from the party!”My heart stuttered. Oliver nodded excitedly. “He looked like us, right Mommy? Why did he look like us?”I knelt down beside them, forcing a gentle smile even as my chest tightened.“Sometimes people look similar, my loves. It doesn’t mean anything.”“But he stared at us a lot,” Oliver said softly, his little brows furrowed. “Like he was sad.”My kids can't stop thinking about him. The man who almost took them from me. I pulled both boys into my arms, hugging them tightly. Their

Author's POV The living room of the Calloway mansion was usually a place of calculated elegance, crystal decanters, silk cushions, and the faint scent of expensive perfume. Tonight, it felt like a war room on the verge of collapse.Linda Calloway paced back and forth across the Persian rug, her silk robe fluttering behind her. Her face was flushed, eyes wide with disbelief and rising panic. Cara sat on the edge of the velvet sofa, clutching her phone so tightly her knuckles had turned white.“I can’t believe it,” Linda hissed, her voice cracking. “Isla. That Isla. The same pathetic little whore we threw out five years ago like yesterday’s garbage. She’s Aurelia Cole? The designer we’ve been obsessing over? The one whose pieces we’ve been buying like addicts?”Cara let out a hysterical laugh that bordered on a sob. “Mom, did you see her tonight? That gown. That confidence. The way she looked at us like we were nothing. Like we were the frauds. How is this even possible? We destroyed