Chapter 11
“Hah. Celeste really is a damn fool. Walking away from a marriage like that? Filing for divorce and leaving on her own? Well–at least she had the decency to back off.”
Vanessa twirled the wine in her glass, mimicking the airs of high society as she let out a cold laugh.
“Rest assured, Celeste. Now that you’re out of the picture, even if you regret it, it won’t matter. Lucian -and everything that
comes with him–belongs to me now. Only me.”
Lucian sped through the city like a man possessed, running every red light along the way until he finally reached home.
Mrs. Lewis greeted him with visible tension, carefully handing over the divorce papers without saying a word.
The stark legal document, with its official seal and clinical formatting, seemed to mock him.
He did the math. About a month ago, Celeste had tricked him into signing the papers under the guise of a ten–year marriage agreement.
Lucian gripped the decree tightly, the corners of his lips twitching into a bitter, self–deprecating smile. A sharp ache twisted in his chest.
“Celeste… People in our circle play around all the time. I gave you so many years–devoted myself to you alone. Now I meet someone else who stirs something in me, and I want to spend ten years with her, just ten years. Why couldn’t you just deal with it?”
He genuinely didn’t understand. In his mind, he hadn’t done anything wrong.
After all, how many men could honestly say they loved only one woman their whole life? He simply lost interest–made the
kind of mistake any man might make.
And he had promised her, hadn’t he? Just ten years. After that, he’d come back to her. What more did she want? Why walk
away?
He stared at those papers in disbelief.
With all his contacts blocked, he borrowed Mrs. Lewis’s phone.
The call rang several times before a robotic voice responded.
“This number you have dialed is currently unavailable. Please try again later…”
Every number he tried gave the same result.
With a heavy thud, Lucian’s entire body radiated an icy chill as he flung the phone from his hand, his face dark with rage.
It crashed hard against the wall, the screen instantly going black as it shattered completely into pieces.
“File that under business expenses,” he muttered coldly to Mrs. Lewis.
Without another word, he headed back to the bedroom.
The moment he stepped in the empty, his expression darkened even more.
The spacious master suite felt different–emptier. All of Celeste’s belongings had completely vanished, not a single item left behind.
It was like she’d never existed here at all.
Lucian leaned back against the wall and shut his eyes, pressing his fingers to his temple. He was exhausted–and deeply unsettled.
Only now did he begin to notice… Over these past weeks, things had been vanishing slowly, bit by bit.
Not just her clothes.
All the shared memories they’d built together–gone without a trace.
The hundreds of love letters he’d written her through college and into their marriage. The ceramic dolls they’d made together on a random road trip. Every cheesy holiday photo, every framed memory–even their wedding picture. All of it. Gone.
Celeste had erased their entire past. She’d cleaned house. Made room for Vanessa.
She didn’t love him anymore. She’d truly given up on him.
The thought hit Lucian like a freight train–and he realized with a jolt: He couldn’t handle it.
From the very first day he met her in college, he’d known she was the one. The woman he would spend the rest of his life with.
So how could she just walk away? How could she stop loving him?
His eyes darkened, a cold, suffocating pressure filling his chest. His jaw clenched as he stared at the empty space where her life used to be.
“Celeste… I never said you could leave me. You think you can just disappear like that? Dream on.”
Chapter 11
