Chapter Eighty-One: Damien's First Letter

(Damien's POV)The call came on a Tuesday morning and I almost did not answer because I was in the middle of my first quarterly presentation to the full board since the probationary reinstatement and my phone was supposed to be on silent and it was not on silent because I had forgotten in the specific distracted way I had been forgetting small things for weeks, the way a man forgot small things when his mind was permanently occupied by one enormous thing that refused to move to the background regardless of what was happening in the foreground.Nathan's name on the screen.I stepped out."She told him," Nathan said. No preamble. Just that.I stood in the corridor outside the boardroom with my presentation notes in one hand and my phone in the other and the specific cold quality of a corridor that had air conditioning set to a temperature nobody had ever asked for."And," I said."He said yes," Nathan said. "Once. Just to see. His words."The notes in my hand went very still.Once. Just

Chapter Eighty-Two: Vanessa's Sentencing

Nathan left that morning with the letter still on the table between us.Not the drawer this time. The table. Three paragraphs on a single page that had taken twelve failed drafts and one sleepless night to produce and which I had read four times after he left and had not changed a single word of because it was honest and it was simple and those two things together were rarer and harder than I had previously understood them to be.I put it in the drawer.Made fresh coffee.And sat with the specific quiet of a man who had done the most important thing he could do that morning and now had to wait for the rest of the world to catch up.The sentencing was that Thursday.Nathan told me twice in the days between that my presence was not required. That the proceedings would conclude with or without me. That sitting in a courthouse watching the sentencing of a woman I had brought into my home and my life was not something I was obligated to put myself through.I went anyway.Not for Vanessa. N

Chapter Eighty-Three: Ethan Proposes Quietly

(Amelia's POV)Noah had been quiet about Damien for over a week.Not worried-quiet. Just thinking-quiet, the specific unhurried processing of a child who had said once, just to see, and was clearly still deciding what he wanted that once to look like before he said anything more about it. I had not asked. Some things belonged entirely to him until he chose to share them.Life, in the meantime, had simply continued.Noah went to bed at nine that Tuesday, worn out from a maths sheet that had apparently personally offended him, and the apartment settled into the particular quiet it settled into once he was down, the lamps low, the dishwasher humming softly from the kitchen, the city outside doing its evening thing beyond the windows.Ethan and I stayed in the kitchen.He had poured two glasses of wine without asking, which he did sometimes on ordinary Tuesdays for no reason except that he liked the ritual of it, the small ceremony of ending a day properly rather than just letting it diss

Chapter Eighty-Four: He Asks Again

The box had been in the kitchen drawer for three weeks.I had not moved it. Had not taken it out to look at it in private moments the way I half expected I might. It simply sat there, beside the spare keys and Noah's permission slips, exactly where I had placed it, and Ethan had never once asked about it or referenced it or made me feel the absence of an answer.The Sinclair Group quarterly review fell on a Thursday.It was Damien's first formal presentation since the probationary terms had been set, the full board assembled, the advisory council present, myself at the head of the table in the chair that still occasionally surprised me when I sat in it. Ethan had been invited as an A.C. Holdings representative, which meant he was there in the room too, in a suit instead of his kitchen clothes, looking entirely composed in a way that still managed to find me across a crowded boardroom within the first thirty seconds of walking in.Damien presented well.I noted it clinically, the way I

All Chapters of HIS MISTRESS, MY REVENGE: Chapter 81 - Chapter 84

Chapter Eighty-One: Damien's First Letter

Chapter Eighty-Two: Vanessa's Sentencing

Chapter Eighty-Three: Ethan Proposes Quietly

Chapter Eighty-Four: He Asks Again