---- Chapter 8 Charlotte Gallegos POV: The weeks that followed the gala were a blur of legal proceedings and media frenzies. Carmella was charged with fraud, conspiracy, and corporate espionage. The Gallegos name was dragged through the mud, splashed across every headline. The Integrity Scholarship became a running joke on late-night talk shows. | watched it all from the quiet sanctuary of a downtown hotel suite that Emmitt had arranged for me. He handled the lawyers, the press, and the endless fallout, shielding me from the worst of the storm. For the first time in my life, someone was fighting for me. The lawsuit against Gallegos Construction was swift and decisive. Faced with irrefutable proof of a decade-long conspiracy and the ensuing public relations nightmare, the board settled immediately. They couldn't give me back the ten years | had lost, but they could give me a number on a piece of paper. It was a staggering sum, representing back pay for the career | should have had, damages for defamation, and my rightful share of the family inheritance that Ashton had effectively controlled. It wasn't about the money. It was about the acknowledgment. ---- It was the price of their betrayal, quantified and paid in full. My family, predictably, fell apart. My parents tried to reach me, leaving dozens of tearful, rambling voicemails. They spoke of misunderstandings, of their love for me, of their hope that we could "heal as a family." They never once used the word "sorry." They couldn't bring themselves to admit their own complicity, their own weakness. They had sacrificed their daughter for a quiet life, and the bill had finally come due. | never called them back. Kash sent a single, terse text: | guess | was wrong about you. It was the closest he could get to an apology. And then there was Ashton He tried everything. He called. He emailed. He showed up at the hotel, only to be turned away by security. He sent letters, pages and pages written in a desperate, sprawling hand | hardly recognized. They were filled with regret, self-loathing, and frantic pleas for forgiveness. He wrote about how Carmella had manipulated him, how he had been blinded by ambition, how he had never stopped loving me. | read one of his letters, sitting in the clean, impersonal light of my hotel room. The words were a torrent of anguish, the raw pain of a man who had lost everything. Ten years ago, those words would have been everything | ever wanted to hear. Now, they felt like a foreign language, describing emotions that no longer had any power over me. He wasn't sorry for what he did to me; he was sorry for how it had made ---- him feel. He was sorry he'd been caught. | threw the letter in the trash with the others. The only person | saw regularly was Emmitt. Our relationship had shifted from the professional to the personal, slowly and naturally. We'd have dinner in quiet, out-of-the-way restaurants where no one would recognize me. He made me laugh, a real, genuine laugh that felt rusty from disuse. He listened. He never looked at me with pity, only with a deep, unwavering respect. One evening, we were walking along the riverfront, the site of the very project that had started all of this. New buildings, not of my design, glittered against the night sky. "What's next for you, Charlotte?" he asked, his hands deep in the pockets of his worn coat. "| don't know," | said honestly. "I've spent so long being the 'disgraced Gallegos sister' that I'm not sure who Charlotte Gallegos is supposed to be." "Well," he said, stopping to look at me. "l know an intelligent, ridiculously talented architect who just came into a massive amount of capital. Sounds to me like she could start her own firm. Build something for herself, on her own terms." The idea was terrifying and exhilarating all at once. To go back to the work | loved, the work that had been stolen from me. To create, not as a Gallegos, but as myself. ---- "Maybe," | said, a small smile touching my lips. His hand came out of his pocket and gently took mine. His fingers were warm and calloused, a comforting anchor in the shifting currents of my new life. It wasn't a gesture of passion, but one of quiet partnership. Of solidarity. It felt more real than any of Ashton' s flowery, desperate letters. We just stood there for a moment, watching the lights on the water. It was peaceful. But peace, | was learning, was a fragile thing. When | got back to my hotel room, someone was waiting for me in the hallway, slumped against the wall by my door. It was Ashton. He looked terrible. He'd lost weight, his expensive suit was rumpled, and his eyes were bloodshot and haunted. The arrogant CEO was gone, replaced by a hollowed-out shell of a man. He scrambled to his feet when he saw me, his movements clumsy. "Charlotte," he breathed, his voice raw. "I had to see you. They wouldn't let me up." "There's a reason for that, Ashton," | said, my voice cool. | made no move toward my door. ---- "Please," he said, his eyes welling up with tears. Real, desperate tears. "Just five minutes. That's all I'm asking. | need to... | need you to know how sorry | am." "| know you're sorry," | said, and he looked up, a flicker of hope in his eyes. | extinguished it without mercy. "You're sorry you were wrong. You're sorry you look like a fool. You're sorry you destroyed the company's reputation and that your fiancée is a sociopath. You've lost everything, and you're sorry for yourself. But you are not sorry for what you did to me." "That's not true!" he cried, taking a step closer. | held up a hand, and he froze. "| miss you. | miss my sister." "Your sister?" | asked, and this time, the laugh that escaped me was sharp and cold. "You haven't had a sister for ten years, Ashton. You traded her for a lie because it was easier. You built your kingdom on her bones. Now you're standing in the ruins of that kingdom, and you want her to come back and help you rebuild? That girl is gone. You killed her." The finality in my voice seemed to hit him like a physical blow. He sagged against the wall, the last of his fight draining away. "What do | do?" he whispered, his voice that of a lost little boy. "| don't know," | said, and it was the honest truth. "And for the first time in my life, Ashton, it's not my problem." | took out my key card, unlocked my door, and stepped inside, closing it gently but firmly behind me. | didn't listen for the ---- sound of his footsteps leaving. | simply leaned against the door, closed my eyes, and breathed. It was the first breath of my new life. And it was free.