Chapter 8
The next few days blurred into a quiet routine.
Linsey and Collin showed up in public like any picture-perfect couple—at a charity dinner, a luxury brand event, even a hospital fundraiser where she watched him silently donate an amount large enough to make jaws drop.
Cameras followed their every move, but it wasn’t the flash of fame that stayed with Linsey.
It was the way Collin opened doors for her without thinking. The way he glanced at her whenever someone asked a question, like her opinion mattered. The way his fingers brushed against hers and lingered a second too long before letting go.
Every small act chipped away at the wall she had built around her heart.
And late one evening, while they were alone in the penthouse library, those cracks finally began to widen.
It had started simply. Linsey sat curled on the leather couch, flipping through a photo album she’d found tucked between old business journals. Most of the pictures were of Collin—before the suits, before the power. One showed him standing in front of a run-down apartment, grinning like a boy who had just won the lottery.
“You used to be… normal,” she teased.
Collin looked up from the fireplace. “That was the plan. Stay small, stay invisible.”
“What changed?”
He walked over and sat beside her, his tone softer than usual. “I got tired of being underestimated.”
She nodded, understanding more than he probably realized. “People see what they want to see. They never look deeper.”
He turned to her. “I did.”
Their eyes locked.
The air shifted.
Linsey’s voice dropped. “You said you remembered everything about that bookstore day. But I don’t understand. Why didn’t you reach out later? Not after you made it big. Not even once?”
He hesitated.
Then, quietly, “Because I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That you’d changed,” he said. “That the girl I met who believed in love… had become just like everyone else.”
Linsey’s throat tightened. “And now?”
Collin reached forward, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers brushed her cheek, slow and hesitant, as if asking for permission.
“Now,” he said, “I know you didn’t change.”
Neither of them moved. Not for a breath. Not for a heartbeat.
Then Linsey leaned forward, her forehead resting gently against his. “I was broken when you found me again,” she whispered. “But you didn’t run.”
“I won’t,” he murmured back. “Not this time.”
The kiss that followed wasn’t dramatic or rushed. It was quiet—soft, like a promise.
It didn’t feel like something new.
It felt like something finally coming home.
Afterward, they sat in silence. She leaned against his chest, his arm around her shoulders. The fire crackled low, the night outside calm.
For the first time since the wedding, Linsey stopped thinking about Joanna. About Felix. About revenge.
All she could think about was Collin.
And what it meant to finally be seen.
But while peace settled in the room, trouble brewed elsewhere.
Joanna paced across her living room, her phone pressed tightly to her ear.
“She’s winning,” she snapped. “They believe it’s real. He actually defended her.”
A man’s voice replied through the speaker, calm and calculating. “Then it’s time we remind the world who Collin Riley used to be.”
Joanna’s eyes gleamed. “You have the file?”
“Everything from his past. Every illegal deal. Every mistake. The man before the money.”
She smiled cruelly. “Let’s tear his world apart.”