Dual POV - Celeste & Lucien.
(A little surprise at end)
Celeste's POV:
I've spent most of my life in control.
Not in power, exactly. But in careful calibration.
Every smile measured. Every silence weighed. Even my grief had choreography — the kind that made others comfortable.
But something inside me is unraveling now. And I don't know how to stop it.
I left Lucien's penthouse without looking back, but the weight of what I saw there won't leave me. That painting — the one of me, not quite me — still sits behind my eyes like a ghost image burned into a screen.
She wasn't broken. She wasn't begging.
She was open.
Like a wound that no longer feared bleeding.
I recognized her.
And that terrifies me more than anything.
---
Damien notices the change, of course. He notices everything when it threatens him.
At breakfast, he places a mug in front of me like it's a peace offering. "You barely slept," he says.
"I was thinking."
"About the clinic?"
About Lucien.
"No," I answer softly. "About us."
He stills.
There's a flicker of something behind his eyes — panic, or pride, or both.
"Celeste," he says, voice dipping into the tone he reserves for difficult negotiations, "if this is about last weekend—"
"It's not," I interrupt. "It's not just about the cabin, or the silences. It's about the fact that I feel like a shadow in my own marriage."
He exhales sharply, sets his mug down harder than necessary.
"And yet you're always disappearing," he mutters. "You think I haven't noticed?"
I freeze.
"What are you saying?"
"You've been different. Distant. Coming home late. Leaving early." His jaw flexes. "I checked the clinic's visitor log."
The blood drains from my face.
He knows.
Or at least suspects.
But instead of confronting me with a name, he's baiting me with half-truths, trying to make me fold before he plays his hand.
I swallow, slow and deliberate. "So you're checking up on me now?"
"I'm trying to protect you."
"From who?"
He doesn't answer.
Because he doesn't know.
Or worse — because he does.
---
I escape to the clinic under the pretense of back-to-back sessions. But I don't see clients today. I close my office door, draw the blinds, and sit with my knees pulled to my chest on the couch I usually reserve for others.
The gold bracelet on my wrist glints in the light.
I twist it. Turn it. Think about taking it off.
I don't.
Instead, I open my desk drawer and find the matte black box.
The locket still sits inside, untouched.
You decide what memory it holds.
My fingers tremble as I open it.
Empty. Waiting.
A choice.
No one has ever trusted me with one before — not like this. Not even Damien. Especially not Damien.
But Lucien… Lucien doesn't ask for control. He offers it. Then waits to see what I'll do with it.
And now I wonder if I'm strong enough to do anything else but choose him.
---
Nadia finds me before the day ends. She doesn't knock. Just breezes in with a stack of files and a cup of tea like she's been doing it for years.
"You look like shit," she says, matter-of-fact.
"I feel worse."
She hands me the tea. "You want to talk about it?"
I consider lying. Then sigh. "It's not simple."
"It never is. But you've got that 'someone reached into my chest and rearranged all my furniture' look, so… I'm guessing 'him' trouble."
I glance up sharply.
Her grin softens. "It's not judgement. Just pattern recognition."
I don't confirm or deny. But I sip the tea and let her sit beside me, her presence grounding in a way I didn't know I needed.
"You know," she says after a beat, "sometimes the thing that scares us most isn't a person or a risk. It's the version of ourselves that might emerge on the other side."
I stare at her.
And suddenly I want to cry.
Not because she's right. But because I'm already becoming that woman. And I don't know how to go back.
---
That night, I receive a message.
Not a text. A note — hand-delivered, slipped beneath the clinic's back door.
No signature.
But I know who it's from.
The ink is heavy. The handwriting sharp.
Come to the rooftop. Midnight. No one will follow you here.
I need you to see what I see.
It's not a demand. It's a door.
And I know, without even meaning to, that I will walk through it.
Lucien's POV:
She's close.
I feel it like weather — shifting, approaching, imminent.
Adrien paces the far end of the suite, unsettled. "Damien's not letting go quietly."
"He's not capable of quiet," I reply, watching the skyline through tinted glass. "Men like him only escalate."
Adrien sighs. "We traced his contact. He made inquiries through an old Moretti liaison. One of ours."
I turn slowly. "Again?"
Adrien nods. "Indirectly. But the wrong people noticed."
Fuck.
The Moretti family and I are bound by bloodlines and betrayal. My father's legacy runs in their veins too — a shared empire carved from violence and secrecy. But I walked away from their chaos to build my own.
If Damien pokes the beast—
"He doesn't know what he's doing," Adrien mutters. "He's trying to sniff out a ghost and he's walking into a lion's den."
"Then we better pull him out before he gets Celeste burned in the crossfire."
Adrien raises an eyebrow. "You're protecting him now?"
"No." My voice drops. "I'm protecting her."
---
At midnight, I wait on the rooftop above the gallery. The city glows beneath us — amber, blue, relentless.
She arrives exactly at twelve.
No coat. Just a black dress, fitted and silent. Her hair is down. Her eyes — sharp.
I turn slowly as she steps toward me. "You came."
"You knew I would."
A pause.
She walks to the edge and stares down at the city.
"Why here?" she asks.
I step beside her. Close, but not touching.
"Because this is where everything breaks. The rules. The fear. The lies."
She looks up at me. "So break it."
I hesitate.
Then hand her a small object from my coat pocket.
She unfolds it slowly. A photograph.
The painting. The second one.
Her, but not her.
Not weak. Worshipped.
The silence stretches.
She doesn't look away.
Finally, she speaks — voice low, trembling. "This… was me, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"When did you—"
"Long before you realized who you were."
Her breath catches.
"I should be angry," she says.
"Are you?"
She shakes her head.
"No. I'm terrified."
"Of me?"
She turns fully to face me.
"No. Of what I might do next."
Celeste's POV:
The world narrows to breath and heat and the space between us.
I'm not the same woman who met him in that lounge.
I'm not the wife who flinched at her husband's distance. Or the therapist who hid behind her degrees.
I'm something else now. Someone unafraid to want.
And when Lucien reaches out — finally — and touches my wrist, the contact feels like lightning made tender.
His fingers brush the gold bracelet.
Still mine. Still his.
I lean into him.
And for the first time in my life, I don't feel like I'm falling.
I feel like I'm flying.
Lucien's POV:
Later that Night
Adrien calls while I watch her sleep.
"She's not safe."
"I know."
"There's movement from the Morettis. Quiet, but real. They know her name now. They know you're involved."
Silence.
"Lucien, they're going to come for her."
My grip tightens on the phone.
"No," I whisper. "They'll have to go through me first."
Final Scene – Damien's POV (First Time)(Second person narrative)
He stares at the screen in front of him, hands clenched around the glass of scotch.
The photos are grainy.
But clear enough.
Celeste. Rooftop. Lucien.
The embrace. The intimacy.
The betrayal.
His mouth tightens as he sets the drink down and dials a number he promised himself he'd never call.
It rings once.
Twice.
A voice answers — thick accent, colder than steel.
"Damien Morano," it says. "To what do we owe this honor?"
He exhales, slow and deadly.
"I want to talk about Lucien Moreau."
The voice laughs.
"Then let's begin."