A Joke, A Lifelong Regret Chapter 01
The night before my wedding, I accidentally connected to Damian Vale’s Bluetooth earpiece.
It was a new encrypted comm device his family’s security team had just developed. They’d sent it over for me to test.
I was about to disconnect when I heard Damian’s voice come through.
Except it wasn’t the Damian standing ten feet away from me.
This voice was lower. Rougher. Like ten years had ground it down to nothing but hate.
“Don’t marry Elena Hart!”
“She’ll figure out the marriage license is fake.”
“She’s the one who killed your and Aria’s first child. She destroyed Aria’s face!””
My mind went completely blank.
The Aria he was talking about was my best friend.
Just minutes ago, she’d slapped Damian across the face in front of everyone because he’d forgotten to pull out my chair.
Those two had always been at each other’s throats.
I turned slowly toward the balcony.
Damian stood there smoking, his black suit cutting a clean line across his broad shoulders. As the youngest heir to the Vale family, he was always composed, always in control. Even with Aria’s handprint still red on his cheek, he looked completely unfazed.
He said into the earpiece, casual as anything, “Relax. I’ll be more careful this time. I won’t let Elena lose her mind, and I won’t let Aria get hurt again. I’ll protect them both.”
When Damian came back inside, the mark on his face still hadn’t faded.
My hands had gone ice-cold. His voice, ten years older and full of contempt, was still echoing in my ears.
He crossed the room toward me like nothing was wrong and looked down. “You okay?”
I stared at the red mark on his cheek. “Does it hurt?”
Damian pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek and smiled a little. “Feeling sorry me? So when are you cutting that lunatic loose?”
His voice had the same dismissal in it whenever he mentioned Aria.
for Ever since Damian and I got together, Aria couldn’t stand him. She always said old-money men like the Vales knew how to calculate, that none of them would ever put a woman first. Damian thought she was trying to poison our relationship and never missed a chance to take a shot at her. I’d always been stuck in the middle, running damage control.
Then the earpiece crackled again.
[Watch yourself. You completely lost control with Aria in that bathroom. If I hadn’t told you to change your shirt, Elena would’ve figured it out by now.]
My fingers clenched.
That’s when I noticed: the white dress shirt Damian had on wasn’t the one he’d been wearing when he arrived.
And Aria had disappeared shortly after he left the table.
My stomach turned.
“Elena?” Damian frowned down at me. “Your hands are freezing.”
I shook my
head. Something was lodged in my throat. I couldn’t get a single word out.”
Damian shrugged off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders, then waved a server over to get the kitchen to make my favorite beef rib soup.
His gaze drifted to my ear. “How does the earpiece feel? I had the security team calibrate it for your hearing sensitivity. You always said the Vale family dinners were too loud. The sound of holsters and glasses clinking together gave you a headache.”
Before I could answer, Aria appeared out of nowhere.
She grabbed the earpiece right off my ear and threw it on the floor.
“What is this garbage? A prototype? You think it’s good enough for Elena?”
That’s when I noticed: Aria had changed her dress. And there were faint marks on her neck that
hadn’t quite faded.
I bent down and picked up the earpiece. “It’s none of your business.”
Aria’s face went stiff. Her eyes instantly filled. “Elena, I was trying to look out for
I didn’t answer. I just put it back on.
you.”
His voice returned immediately, familiar and completely foreign at the same time.
[Aria’s too selfless. I had that piece custom-made for her, but she wouldn’t take it. Insisted I give it to Elena first. I can’t give her a title anymore, so I’m not letting her hurt her pride over something this small.]
I looked up.
A flash of panic crossed Damian’s face before he turned to Aria and said, cold and deliberate, “What I give is between me and Elena. Stay out of it.”
Aria went pale. She stared at me, waiting for me to take her side the way I always did. When I didn’t move, she stomped her foot and burst out, “Fine! Elena, when Damian Vale finally breaks your heart, don’t come crying to me!”
She spun around to leave.
“Watch out!”
Someone in the crowd screamed and pointed at the ceiling.
The massive crystal chandelier above us lurched, then dropped straight down like it’d been cut loose.
Damian was the closest to me.
He didn’t look at me.
His body moved before his mind could. Pure instinct. He lunged toward Aria and pulled her tight against his chest.
I hit the floor.
Shards of crystal and glass tore into my skin. Sharp pain burst through my forehead, my arms, my shoulders.
Through blurring vision, I watched Aria shove Damian away and come running toward me like
something had snapped in her.
“Elena!”
She dropped to her knees beside me and tore through the glass with her bare hands, digging it away
piece by piece. Her palms split open and she didn’t even flinch.
Damian stood behind her, his face ashen.
He finally looked at me.
But I’d already closed my eyes.