All Chapters of After Midnight With Him : Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

Sophia’s POVI barely slept the night before.The waiting had become its own kind of pressure, heavier than the cameras and the headlines in some ways, because there was nothing left to do but sit with it. Damien stayed up with me for a long stretch, not talking much, just present. When I finally dozed off near morning, my hand was still loosely closed around his.The courthouse felt different when we arrived. Not quieter. Just tighter, like the air itself knew something was about to close. Reporters lined the steps. A few called my name. Damien’s hand stayed at my back as we walked through them and into the building, steady and wordless. Inside, the corridor to the courtroom smelled like paper and polished wood and the metallic edge of too many nerves in one place.Isabella was already seated when we entered. She didn’t look over. I didn’t either. I took my place beside Damien and folded my hands in my lap so no one would see them shake.The judge came in. The room rose, then settled

Sophia’s POVEleanor didn’t let go of me for a long time after the house went quiet.We had ended up on the couch in her living room, the same one where I had first told her I was pregnant, the same one where I had cried when the secret became too heavy to carry alone. The twins were still at school. The television was off. Outside, the day continued without any interest in the fact that a court case had just given me my name back.“You’re shaking,” Eleanor said softly.“I know. It keeps coming in waves.” I pulled back enough to look at her. “I keep thinking something else is going to land. Another photo. Another statement. Another version of me I won’t recognize.”“That’s what weeks of being hunted does.” She brushed my hair away from my face the way she had done since we were younger. “But look at where you are. Look at what you walked through.”I let out a breath that still felt uneven. “I didn’t feel brave. Most of the time I just felt like I was trying not to disappear.”“That’s

Sophia’s POVThe house was quiet in the way it only got after something large had finally ended.No more court schedules. No more statements waiting for approval. No more bracing for Isabella’s next move. The verdict had settled. The cameras had eventually moved on to other people’s disasters. In the space that remained, Damien and I were still learning how to stand without an emergency pressing us together.He asked me to sit with him on the balcony that evening. The city was a spread of ordinary lights under a dark sky. I lowered myself into the chair beside his, one hand resting against the curve of my stomach out of habit more than discomfort. He watched the gesture with an expression I still hadn’t fully gotten used to—soft, focused, permanently changed.For a while neither of us spoke.Then he said, “I don’t want another arrangement.”I turned my head. “What do you mean?”“I don’t want another engagement that exists for a room, or a headline, or a temporary truce with the world.

Sophia’s POVI thought we had agreed on quiet.Somewhere between the private yes and the first real planning meeting, quiet left the building. What replaced it was a machine with taste, money, and too many opinions. By the end of the first week the guest list had tripled. By the end of the second it had grown into something with gravity of its own—business leaders who never attended anything personal, relatives Damien hadn’t spoken to in years, a handful of public faces whose presence would be read as endorsement, and enough powerful family names to make the security plan look like a diplomatic event.“This is not what we talked about,” I said, staring at the revised list on the tablet.Austin didn’t even pretend to look guilty. “You and Damien talked about quiet. The city heard ‘Blackwood wedding’ and decided quiet was adorable but irrelevant. Half these people would take an exclusion as a permanent insult.”Damien stood at the window with his hands in his pockets. “We can still cut

Damien’s POVI arrived at the altar before the music changed and realized I had no useful thoughts left.The room was full in a way that should have registered as strategy—board members, family names, people whose presence meant the city’s most careful eyes were on us. I barely saw them. Austin stood a step behind me saying something under his breath about breathing. My father sat in the front with a composed face and eyes that kept shining whenever he forgot to control them. Beyond the windows the late light was clean and pale. None of it held my attention for more than a second.I was waiting for her.When the music finally shifted, the room rose in one soft motion. I turned toward the end of the aisle and felt everything else fall out of focus.Sophia stood there with Eleanor at her side, one hand resting in the careful loop of her friend’s arm, the other lightly against the curve of her stomach. The dress was simple enough to belong to her and formal enough for every person watchi