CHAPTER 41

It had been a week since the chaos started. A week since everything began to unravel for Alexander and his carefully constructed life. The news had broken in a way that no one had expected. Angelina, in a last-ditch effort to protect herself, had leaked everything. The truth about the cheating, the abortions, the lies. It was everywhere—on every news channel, every social media platform. People were shocked, appalled, disgusted. The perfect family image Alexander had spent years building was in tatters.

And yet, in all that madness, there was one thing Angelina didn't know. She didn't know about me. She didn't know about Ember.

That thought made me smile to myself as I sat on the couch, my baby girl cradled in my arms, her tiny fingers grasping onto my shirt. I could feel the satisfaction of my plan working perfectly running through my veins. I had done it. I had torn his life apart, shattered the image he had worked so hard to protect. And now, all I had to do was wait.

I watched the news report, the reporter's voice droning on about the scandal surrounding Alexander's marriage. His face flashed on the screen, his expression cold and angry, as if he hadn't just been caught in a storm of his own making. I could feel the power in that moment—the feeling of victory. This was it. This was the moment I had been working toward for so long. My revenge was unfolding exactly as I'd imagined.

"Alexander, you thought you could just discard me, didn't you?" I whispered to myself. "You thought you could make me feel like nothing. But now, now I have everything."

I looked down at Ember, her soft, peaceful face as she slept in my arms. She was the one constant, the one light in all of this. I had done this for her, after all. The house, the nursery, the money, the plans—it was all for her. She was my future. I would raise her to be strong, to know her worth, to never let anyone treat her the way Alexander had treated me.

But as much as I hated him—hated him for what he had done to me, for the way he had used me, for the way he had broken my heart—I still loved him. I still longed for him. And that was the part I hated most. The part I couldn't control. The part that made this entire plan feel like a twisted game of love and revenge.

I had ruined his life. I had exposed his darkest secrets to the world. But in the back of my mind, the truth was clear—I had done this to make him come back to me. I wanted him to see the mess I had caused, the way his world had crumbled, and realize that he needed me. That I was the one he had betrayed, the one he had tossed aside for a perfect, clean image.

And when he finally saw that, when he realized what had happened, he would come crawling back to me. He would beg for my forgiveness. He would tell me that he had made a mistake, that he was sorry. I would make him wait. I would play hard to get. I would remind him of everything he had done to me. He would feel the weight of his own actions, and in the end, he would be the one to come to me.

It wasn't even about the baby, not really. Ember was my everything now, but in some twisted part of my heart, I needed Alexander to recognize me as the woman he couldn't live without.

I looked at her, my beautiful baby girl. I brushed a strand of her dark hair away from her face and kissed her forehead. She stirred slightly but stayed asleep, her breathing soft and steady.

"The future is bright for you, Ember," I whispered, my heart swelling with both love and the pain of all the things I had done to get here. "The future is bright for us."

The guilt that had nagged at me, the doubt that had crept in the past few weeks, started to fade as I held her in my arms. I was doing this for us. I would protect her. No one could hurt her. And as for Alexander… he had crossed a line, and now it was time for him to pay.

But no matter what, I would make sure she grew up knowing that she was loved, that she was wanted, that she was everything to me.

I would make sure that no one—no man, no one—could ever hurt her the way I had been hurt.

And when Alexander finally realized the truth, when he finally understood what he had lost, he would come back to me. And when that moment came, I would be ready.

For now, though, I smiled at Ember, my heart full of plans and promises for the future.

The world could burn, but as long as I had her, as long as we had each other, everything would be okay.

"Everything will be okay," I whispered again, more to myself than to her.

I looked out the window, the sunlight streaming in and casting a warm glow across the room. It was a new day. A new chapter. And I was ready for whatever came next.

For Ember. For me.

And for the day Alexander came crawling back.