All Chapters of THE CEO ALREADY KNEW : Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

The night is quiet.Too quiet, maybe — the kind of quiet that makes you want to fill it with words you've been holding back. Celeste is asleep on the couch, her head still in my lap, her hand still over my heart. The city lights flicker through the windows, painting her face in shades of gold and shadow.I should wake her.Take her to bed.Let her sleep somewhere her neck won't ache in the morning.But I can't move.Because I'm thinking about Adrian. About the call. About the offer he made — money, documents, a clean exit — and the way I almost said yes.Almost.I nearly told Celeste about it. Nearly tell her everything — the way my heart raced when he said my name, the way a part of me still remembered what it felt like to survive alone, the way fear almost won.But then she shifts in her sleep. Murmurs my name — Daphne — soft and wondering, like she's still surprised I'm here.And I think: I can't tell her. Not tonight. Not when she's finally sleeping.The moment passes.The words s

It happens on a Tuesday.The kind of Tuesday that starts like any other — coffee, croissants, Celeste reading the news on her tablet while Mireille argues with Hana about security protocols. Ordinary. Almost boring. The kind of morning I used to take for granted before I learned that peace is just the silence between disasters.I'm in the office — Celeste's office, though she's been using it less since the resignation — looking for a book she mentioned. Something about resilience. Something about rebuilding. She said it helped her through the early years, before Oracle, before everything.The book isn't on the shelf.I check the desk drawers. The credenza. The filing cabinet she never locks because she trusts Hana's security more than deadbolts.That's where I found it.A tablet. Buried under old contracts and board minutes. The screen is dark, but when I press the power button, it glows to life.And I see myself.Not a photo. A live feed.My face, captured by a camera I didn't know e

The morning after the fight, Celeste does something she's never done before.She asks permission."I'd like to show you something," she says, standing in the kitchen doorway. She's still in my shirt, her hair a mess, her face bare. No armor. No mask. Just her."What kind of something?""A record. Of everything I've done since you moved out. Everything I've been doing to try to earn back your trust."I set down my coffee."You've been keeping a record?""I've been keeping proof." She walks toward me, stops a few feet away. "Not for surveillance. For accountability. So you could see, if you wanted, that I wasn't lying when I said I stopped watching.""Show me."---She leads me to the office.Not the desk where I found the tablet — the other one, the small writing desk in the corner that I've never seen her use. She opens a drawer, pulls out a leather-bound journal.Not digital. Not encrypted. Paper."I started this the night you left for the hotel," she says, holding it out. "Every day

The penthouse door closes behind us.Celeste doesn't let go. Her arms are wrapped around my waist, her face buried in my neck, her body pressed against mine like she's afraid I'll dissolve if she loosens her grip. I hold onto her the same way — desperate, trembling, trying to remember how to breathe.We stood in the dark hallway for a long time.Neither of us speaks.Because what is there to say? I left. I came back. I'll probably leave again. The words circle in my head like vultures, waiting for me to admit what we both know: running used to feel easier. It used to be the only thing I was good at.Now it feels like dying.---She pulls back first.Her eyes are red, her cheeks wet, but she's not crying anymore. She's just looking at me — really looking — the way she does when she's trying to memorize my face."You're here," she says."I'm here.""For how long?"The question lands like a blade."I don't know."She nods slowly. Don't push. Just takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom

The fourth day is the worst.Not the first, when adrenaline still hummed through my veins and every shadow looked like an opportunity. Not the second, when I still believed I could outrun the hollow feeling in my chest. The fourth day — when the hotel room stopped being a refuge and started being a cage. When my phone stopped feeling like a lifeline and started feeling like a reminder of everything I'd walked away from.I've survived cons, betrayals, worse women than this.So why does day four feel like withdrawal?---I woke up at 3 a.m. again.The sheets are tangled, damp with sweat. My hand reaches across the bed before my brain catches up — reaching for her, the way it's done every morning for months. But the other side of the bed is empty. Cold. The pillow still holds the faint indent of a head that was never here.I sit up, press my palms against my eyes.You chose this.You needed space.You told her not to call.Knowing doesn't make it easier.---The hotel is in the 11th arro