Chapter 15
Phones up. People already recording. Paparazzi snapping like popcom in cil
Caroline’s face? Drained. Ghost–white.
Favio? Frozen. Still holding her hands like a man gripping a lie he can’t afford to drop
I reached the front. Smiled sweetly. “Hi, everyone. Just needed a moment of your precious ceremony.”
I motioned to the projector beside the altar–the one they planned to use for their wedding montage. How sweet.
Luther was already there. He plugged in the flash drive like clockwork.
I turned to the crowd. “Since we’re all here celebrating truth and eternal love, I figured–why not make some memories together?”
Click.
The video started.
A high–definition reel played across the massive screen. Caroline. In bed. Not with Favic.
The Frenchman was enthusiastic. Very… vocal. Her face? Crystal clear. Her moans? Better
audio than most Netflix series.
Screams.
Gasps. A woman in the third row literally dropped her pearls.
Caroline crumpled to the floor, sobbing in a heap of veil and shame. “No, no, no, this isn’t- this isn’t what it looks like-”
“Oh, it’s exactly what it looks like, darling,” I said, sipping my drink. “Shall I play the part where you say his name in three languages?”
Favio tried to lunge toward me, face twisted in fury–but Luther stepped in like a wall of polished steel.
“Nah,” Luther said, voice low and lethal. “Touch her, and I’ll end your honeymoon before it
starts.”
Mrs. Cunningham fainted. Like, full–on dramatic fall. Someone screamed. A tray of hors d’oeuvres hit the floor. I raised my glass high and smiled at the stunned, horrified crowd.
“To eternal love,” I said sweetly. “Or, you know, at least until the next scandal.”
I took Luther’s hand.
We turned and walked straight down the aisle like it was a runway, camera flashes chasing behind us. Security tried to block the press–too late. The damage was done. The footage was out. The legend? Already born.
We reached the helipad. The chopper was ready. Blades slicing the air like applause. I climbed in, wind whipping my gown like a violet flame. Luther followed, handing me another glass of champagne.
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“You good?” he asked over the roar.
I smirked, raising my glass to him.
“I’m better than good,” I said. “I just ruined a wedding before lunch.”
He laughed, God, that man’s laugh was sinful.
The chopper lifted. Below us? Screams, Scandal, Headlines being written in real–time. Above? Just wind, power, and a future that smelled like vengeance and roses.
And maybe… something sweeter.
I leaned back into the leather seat, violet silk pressed to my skin, champagne untouched in my hand. Luther sat across from me, scanning something on his phone–probably the media explosion I’d just detonated. He looked like vengeance in a suit. Solid. Steady. My anchor.
But my mind? It had already left the skies.
It went back–before the betrayal, before the scandal, before the hitmen.
Back to when I was a fool. Back to when I was in love…
[Flashbacks]
“You’re the smartest woman I’ve ever met,” Favio whispered, brushing his fingers against mine across the table.
We were at some candlelit rooftop in Prague, the kind of place you had to bribe your way
prayers. into. Strings of lights hung above us like stars that actually answered
“I’m also the only woman who’s called you out on your bullshit in public,” I laughed. “That’s why I want you.” He said it like a promise. Like it meant something.
And I believed him.
The flashback played out in jagged, cruel frames–like a scratched film reel that never stopped looping.
I had loved him. I really did. When Caroline left him–when she cheated and ran off with her French fling the first time–he showed up at my doorstep like a storm. Hair disheveled, shirt half–buttoned, a bottle of aged scotch in one hand and heartbreak in his eyes.
“I was a fool,” he told me, crouching in front of me on my living room floor like some broken prince. “I chose wrong. I see that now. I should’ve picked you from the beginning.”
I wiped away his tears. Held him like he wasn’t poison. Because back then, I thought maybe he wasn’t. He lovebombed me like a pro.
Dinners in Santorini. Private jets to Vienna “just to watch the snow.” A goddamn horse for my birthday–a horse, like I had a stable tucked under my penthouse.
“I just want you to have everything,” he said, slipping a diamond bracelet onto my wrist, one that looked like it belonged in a museum vault.
He never asked what I liked. He just bought things.
Dresses that screamed old–money wife. Red velvet gowns, feathered heels, stiff pearl
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chokers. Not me. Never me.
And always–always–sunflowers. Caroline’s fave.
Bouquets of them, wrapped in gold foil, delivered every Thursday like clockwork. They made my throat swell and my eyes itch, but I kept them. Smiled for the cameras. Took photos. Posted them. Because I loved him.
And I thought… he loved me too.
“I want to take care of you, Amelia,” he told me once, after dragging me into his lap in his office–hands wandering, breath hot against my throat. “The Winslock Group would be safer with me as CEO. You can’t trust board vultures, baby. Let me protect your legacy.”
He made it sound like romance. He always did.
And I signed the damn transfer because I thought he was the one person who wouldn’t
burn me.
“It’ll always be our empire,” he promised, fingers laced with mine.
Liar.
Even his mother–Mrs. Cunningham–treated me like royalty… but only when Favio was watching.
“Oh, Amelia,” she’d say, lips stretched in that plastic smile, “you’ve done wonders for his temper. He’s so tame around you.”
The moment he’d step away? That smile vanished like mist. Cold eyes. Sharpened tongue: “Try not to embarrass yourself at dinner,” she’d whisper once, as we walked into a gala “You have a habit of talking too much.”
She only hugged me when cameras were near. She never remembered my allergies. And once, she called me “that poor girl they adopted to boost PR.”
