Chapter 31
“I’m only telling the truth,” Madam Creed sneered, her voice echoing off the high ceilings. “Who’s going to stop me? You’re empty now. You can’t have kids. No man wants a broken vessel. Who would ever marry you p>
The cruelty hung in the air like a foul mist. Amara stood her ground, her face pale but her eyes like burning stars. Before the poison could settle, a shadow moved.
Julian stepped out of the dark. He didn’t look at the crowd; he only had eyes for Amara. “So,” he said, his voice a low, smooth rumble that commanded the room. “You’re trying to tear her down just because she finally walked out of your son’s shadow? That is a special kind of evil p>
He turned to Amara, his expression softening into something so raw and honest it made her breath catch.
“Amara,” he said, taking a step into her light. “I have loved you for ages. Since the days when we were just kids, and your heart was already promised to someone who didn’t deserve it. Can you give me a chance? Marry me p>
“Are you serious?” Amara whispered, her voice trembling. The world felt like it was tilting on its axis.
“I have never been more sure of anything,” Julian replied. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box, the diamond inside catching every bit of light in the room.
Seb felt his heart shatter. He stood there, holding his secret family, watching the woman who had been his entire world being claimed by a man who was everything he wasn’t. He had lost his company, his pride, and now, he was watching his forever walk away into someone else’s arms.
“I’ve loved you for ten years,” Julian said, his voice a promise. “I want to spend every day of the rest of my life making up for the years you spent in the dark p>
Madam Pedro smiled, a look of triumph crossing her face as she looked at the stunned, speechless Madam Creed. “Go on,” she encouraged, her voice ringing with pride. “Put the ring on her. Let them see what a precious jewel my daughter really is p>
Julian slid the ring onto Amara’s finger. It fit perfectly, a circle of fire and ice.
“There you go,” Madam Pedro said, glancing at the ruined Creeds one last time. “I told you not to hide, Amara. The light was always going to find you p>
The room hummed with a new energy, the air finally clearing of Seb’s suffocating lies.
“Amara and Julian… they are the perfect match,” Madam Pedro said, her voice ringing with a pride that reached every corner of the hall. “She was blind back then, lured by a shadow like Seb. But Julian? He is light. That is my son-in-law. A man of honor, unlike any of you p>
Madam Creed let out a harsh, jagged laugh, her face twisted in a desperate attempt to find one last bit of dirt to throw.
“Don’t get too excited, Julian. Your family is old money, high status. Do you really think your parents will be okay with this? A woman who can’t give them heirs? A woman who is ’damaged goods p>
The crowd shifted, a path opening up as a woman of immense grace stepped forward. Her silk gown rustled like a warning.
“Madam Vale is here,” someone whispered, the name carrying the weight of an empire.
Julian’s mother didn’t glance at the Creeds. She walked straight to Amara and took her hands, her touch warm and welcoming.
“Amara is an amazing woman,” Madam Vale said, her voice calm but echoing with authority. She looked at her son with a soft, knowing smile.
“Julian couldn’t be luckier. He has kept himself single for ten long years, waiting for no one but her. Now, thanks to the truth finally coming out, they can be together p>
Madam Creed stood frozen, her mouth hanging open as her last weapon turned to ash. She had expected a scandal; she found a coronation.
Madam Vale turned to Madam Pedro, her expression glowing. “Madam Pedro, I hope you’ll let me help. I want to give them a wedding that this city will remember for a lifetime. A celebration of a love that actually knows how to wait p>
Amara felt Julian’s hand tighten protectively around hers. For the first time in a decade, the weight in her chest wasn’t pain, it was peace. She looked at Seb, who stood in the ruins of his own making, and realized he wasn’t even a memory anymore. He was just a ghost she had finally outrun.
“What a coincidence,” Amara’s mother said, her smile broadening as she looked at Madam Vale. “I was thinking the exact same thing p>
Amara looked down at the ring on her finger, the light dancing across the diamond. It felt heavy, not with the weight of a burden, but with the weight of a promise. She looked at Julian, seeing the man who had waited in the silence for ten years, and then she turned her gaze to Seb one last time. Whatever ghost of a feeling had been lingering in her heart finally flickered and died. She let go.
Seb stumbled out of the mansion, the grand doors closing behind him with a final, heavy thud. The night air was cold, but it couldn’t compare to the ice in his veins. He felt like a walking corpse, his suit suddenly too large, his skin too tight.
Behind his closed eyes, all he could see was Amara. Not the cold queen who had just stripped him of his crown, but the girl who had tucked him in, the woman who had nursed his family back to health, the light that had warmed his home for a decade.
He wanted it back. He wanted the safety of her arms and the softness of her voice.
“I lied,” he whispered into the empty night, his voice cracking as he wandered away from the lights of the gala. “I lied… but the love wasn’t a lie. It was real. Everything we had… it was real p>
He repeated the words like a prayer, a desperate attempt to convince the stars that he hadn’t destroyed the only good thing he ever owned. But the wind didn’t answer.
He had walked out of his empire, left his weeping mother and his hollow “family” behind, and stepped into a darkness of his own making. Seb walked until his shadow disappeared into the black, a king with no kingdom, a husband with no home.
“You are mine, Amara, only mine, you will be mine only,” and Seb meant it.