A Joke, A Lifelong Regret Chapter 08
Since the day at the fake clerk’s office, Damian and I hadn’t been in the same room.
I’d gone back to the penthouse we’d shared.
Spent an entire day clearing out everything that was mine.
Clothes, books, design work, skincare. The jewelry he’d given me.
Anything connected to him, photos, gifts, handwritten cards, I burned or tossed into a trash bag
I left with two suitcases.
Clean. Like the last few years had never happened.
When I finally went to see him, I’d just come from a job interview.
I was still in my suit, hair pulled back tight.
Through the glass of the visiting room, Damian saw me and went completely still.
He hadn’t expected this. Someone sharp and collected and entirely okay.
Not the broken, tear-soaked version of me he must have been imagining.
He’d lost a lot of weight. His jaw was rough with stubble, his eyes lined with exhaustion. His expensive suit was wrinkled in a way it never would have been before. He didn’t look anything like the Vale heir who used to walk into a room and own it.
He sat down and gripped the phone with both hands.
“Elena.”
I picked up. “Say what you need to say.”
He swallowed hard. The red along his eyes deepened.
“I thought you’d hate me.”
“I did.” I met his eyes. “But eventually I figured out hating you was a waste of time.”
Damian flinched.
“Elena, I know I was wrong.”
“Aria and I, it wasn’t something I planned. You were going through so much, and she kept coming, around, and I was drunk, and I made a mistake. Then she said she’d forget the whole thing. And then she was pregnant.”
I listened without interrupting.
After the sentencing, both Aria and I had gotten interview requests from different networks.
I’d watched a clip of hers.
She’d put every bit of the blame on Damian. Cast herself as the victim.
I was sure Damian had seen it too.
Two people turning on each other. Even less interesting than I’d imagined.
“Elena. Does any of what I just said make sense to you?”
He asked it carefully, like the answer mattered a lot.
I didn’t respond.
The sunlight came through the window and fell across the table between us.
He sat in shadow.
I sat in the light.
“Damian, let me tell you something that’s almost funny.”
“Someone told me once that I was going to end up in prison.”
“He said I’d killed you and Aria’s baby. That I’d destroyed Aria’s face. Ruined her life.”
“He said he hated me.”
“He said he’d spent everything he had to have the country’s best legal team push my sentence from seven years to fifteen.”
Damian went rigid.
“How? How do you know that? Who told you?”
He kept repeating it like the words wouldn’t form right.
I looked at him and slowly stood.
“From that moment, I told myself one thing.”
“I was not going to live like that.”
“I was not going to let a man or a woman grind my life into the dirt.”
“Damian. How you and Aria ended up together, what it meant, what happened between you. None of that matters to me anymore.”
“I don’t care.”
Because I don’t love you anymore.
Damian Vale. Your life, your regrets, your choices. None of it has anything to do with me now.
I set down the phone and turned to leave.
What I hadn’t expected was seeing Aria outside.
Three months, and she looked like she’d lost a third of herself. If I hadn’t recognized the keychain on her phone, I might have walked right past her.
That keychain.
She’d bought a matching pair the year we graduated college. She gave one to me.
Mine had gone in the trash the same day I cleared out the penthouse.