Celeste's POV:
The city outside my window was just beginning to wake, painted in the muted grays and purples of predawn. I lay in my bed, the same bed I shared with Damien, but the sheets felt colder, the silence heavier than ever before. Hours ago, on that rooftop, the air had crackled with a forbidden electricity, the promise of something vast and dangerous. Here, now, there was only the ghost of a touch I hadn't received, and the echo of words that had stripped me bare.
"Of what I might do next."
My own words, flung at Lucien in that moment of terrifying honesty. And I still didn't know the answer. All I knew was that the careful architecture of my life was crumbling, and I was the one pulling the bricks.
Damien was still asleep beside me, his breathing shallow, oblivious. I slipped out from under the covers, the cool air a shock against my skin. The gold bracelet felt heavier on my wrist than usual, a constant reminder of the man who had seen through every one of my masks.
I walked to the bathroom, not bothering to turn on the lights. My reflection in the dimness was a stranger – eyes too wide, lips slightly parted, a subtle flush on my cheeks that had nothing to do with sleep.
I looked like a woman who had just stared into the abyss and found it exhilarating.
The conversation with Damien at breakfast replayed in my mind. His suspicion, his casual mention of the clinic's visitor log. He knew. Or at least, he was sniffing around the edges of a truth he couldn't stomach.
His attempt to "protect" me felt like a cage closing in.
He called it concern; I felt it as control.
The thought of his hand, possessive and weak, on my back now made my skin crawl.
Nadia's words from yesterday were a lifeline. "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."
The woman emerging was terrifying. Fierce. Unapologetically hungry. And I wasn't running from her anymore. I was embracing her.
---
I dressed quietly, a simple black dress that felt less like a costume and more like a second skin. My usual clinical poise felt flimsy, easily shattered. I picked up my phone, my thumb hovering over Lucien's contact. My stomach fluttered. What would I say?
"I still want you"? "What now?"
He hadn't touched me. But he had seen me. And that was a form of possession far more potent than any physical act. He had broken open the walls I'd built, not with force, but with a gaze that recognized the wildness I'd buried.
I heard Damien stirring in the bedroom. I slid my phone back into my bag. Not yet. This wasn't a phone call conversation. This was something that needed to be felt, experienced.
---
At the clinic, the familiar hum of the city outside felt different. Every client's story of suppressed desire now resonated with my own. How many of them, like me, had constructed lives around what they should be, rather than what they craved?
I found myself pacing my office, not out of restlessness, but out of a surge of unexpected energy. The locket Lucien had sent sat in my drawer, empty, waiting for me to fill it. He had given me a choice. And the choice felt less like a burden and more like a coronation.
I pulled out a blank journal, something I used to recommend to my clients.
My own, usually filled with clinical observations, was now filled with the word: His.
I picked up a pen, but the words wouldn't come. My thoughts were too chaotic, too raw.
Then, a knock on my office door. My assistant, Clara, poked her head in. "Dr. Morano? There's a delivery for you."
My heart jumped. A small, elegant box wrapped in dark paper. No name. No card. Just a single, long-stemmed crimson rose nestled on top. It pulsed with a dangerous beauty.
My hands trembled as I took it. I dismissed Clara with a nod, my gaze fixed on the rose. It wasn't the anonymous roses from months ago.
This felt different. More direct. A subtle declaration.
He knew I was here. He knew what Damien had said. And he was responding.
I carefully placed the rose in a vase on my desk, the thorns a sharp contrast to the soft petals. The scent filled my office, heavy and intoxicating.
I picked up the locket from my drawer. My fingers traced its smooth, cool surface.
What memory would it hold?
The sterile perfection of my marriage? The quiet suffocation? Or the electric thrill of a rooftop at midnight, where a man with storm-gray eyes had promised to set me free?
My mind made the decision before I did. I pulled my car keys from my bag. I had one client left, but she could wait. Or reschedule.
I had a memory to make. And a choice to embody.
I was done waiting. And I was done pretending.