Page 42 of Vows of Deceit
“No,” Vivienne agreed. “It begins with truth.”
All eyes turned to Kelly.
Her eyes glistened, mascara smeared beneath them. “You all want me to apologize? To grovel? I won’t.”
Cassie stepped closer. “I don’t need your apology, Kelly. I need your absence.”
The words hung there and slowly, like an unraveling thread, Kelly’s composure snapped. She let out a choked sob and fled the room, heels echoing off the marble floor. Vivienne crumpled into tears.
Charles finally sat beside her and placed a hand over hers. For once, not as the chairman. Just as her husband. Cassie turned away from the window. And walked out.
Not in rage.
Not in triumph.
But with the quiet resolve of someone who had nothing left to prove.
Chapter Thirty Three
Kelly’s Spiral
The silence in Kelly’s penthouse was deafening. No calls. No texts. No interviews booked. No stylists at her door. Her latest social media post, an overly filtered selfie with a cryptic caption about loyalty was bombarded with thousands of comments. None supportive. #Homewrecker. #CassieDeservedBetter. #CancelKelly. She slammed her phone down.
The PR rep her mother had hired finally stopped answering. Three brands had dropped her by noon. Her agent left a voicemail about “reevaluating partnerships.” And the fashion house she’d modeled for at Milan’s winter showcase? They scrubbed her campaign from every platform.
Sienna stared into her mirror, eyes red, lipstick smeared. “They want a villain?” she whispered. “Fine.”
She called Modern Vogue Weekly—the most read fashion and society mag on the East Coast and offered them an exclusive. A feature. Her side of the story.
The editor paused. “We’ll need proof, Kelly. Not just feelings.”
“I’ll give you text messages. Screenshots. Timeline breakdowns. My side.”
“And what exactlyisyour side?”
“I loved him first.”
The article dropped three days later. The headline read“The Mistress Speak. Kelly King on Love, Loyalty, and Being Betrayed by Blood.”
The piece was a cocktail of confession and performance. Tearful admissions. “I was never given a chance to love him openly.” “Cassie always played the martyr.” “We were just two people caught in something bigger than us.”
She painted Damien as conflicted, Cassie as cold, and herself as misunderstood. Photos of her standing in front of her art collection, barefoot and raw, filled the glossy spread but public sympathy didn’t swing. Instead, it roared louder in Cassie’s favor.
Even celebrities started sub tweeting Kelly’s lines. Her spiral deepened. She tried to salvage her influence by posting old clips, glamorous shoots, soft-lit monologues about forgiveness and female strength. Nothing worked. In a desperate final move, she uploaded a live video.
Tear-streaked. Disheveled. “I know I made mistakes,” she said. “But haven’t we all?”
The comments section turned brutal within seconds. She shut it off halfway through. Kelly collapsed onto the couch. For the first time, the silence wasn’t from others. It came from within.
Chapter Thirty Four
The Kiss Replayed
The glass conference room was drenched in late afternoon sunlight when Cassie stepped inside. She paused in the doorway, pulse unsteady, as Grayson stood at the far end, reviewing floor plans spread across the sleek table.
He didn’t look up immediately, but when he did, their eyes locked like magnets.
Neither of them spoke.
