The door slammed harder than she meant it to.
Christian looked up from his phone, unbothered.
"Something happen?" he asked coolly, as if he didn't already know.
Ana dropped her purse on the counter like a statement. "She came here."
His jaw flexed. "Victoria?"
"You knew she would."
He stood, buttoning his blazer with that signature calm she was beginning to hate.
"She's predictable."
"She's venom in heels."
"She's irrelevant."
"Then why did you look like a ghost walked in when I said her name?"
Her voice cracked — not from weakness, but from truth too heavy to swallow.
Christian walked past her toward the mini-bar. "Drink?"
Ana didn't move. "Don't change the subject."
He paused. Then poured two fingers of bourbon anyway.
"She said this was all about the company," Ana continued. "That I was a distraction. That she was promised a seat before me. Tell me she's lying."
Christian set the glass down without drinking.
His back was still turned.
"She's not."
Silence.
Ana felt her stomach tighten. "So I'm just... a strategy?"
"You were never supposed to be you," he said quietly. "You were supposed to be a signature. A placeholder."
Her laugh was bitter. "And now?"
He finally turned.
There was something unreadable in his eyes.
"I don't know what you are now."
That answer hurt worse than if he'd said nothing at all.
Ana crossed her arms, fire in every inch of her voice.
"I don't care about your company. Or your past. Or your broken princess with a diamond throat. But I'm not going to be another woman who lets you use her until you feel something again."
Christian stepped closer.
But this time, she didn't move back.
"You're different," he said, voice low.
"Then treat me like it."
Their eyes locked.
The air between them snapped with everything unsaid.
Anger. Curiosity. Heat. Hurt.
He reached for her wrist—but she pulled away.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
"You want a fake wife, Christian?" she whispered. "Fine. But you don't get to have pieces of the real me when it's convenient."
And with that, she walked out of the room.
Not defeated.
But decided.
Christian didn't follow her.
Because deep down… he didn't know if he deserved her to.
She shut the guest bedroom door with more control than she felt.
Her breathing was steady.
Her face was calm.
But inside, her chest was burning.
He said he didn't know what she was to him now.
Not who she was, not what she felt — just that he didn't know how to categorize her anymore.
Ana Rae was many things.
But she would never be someone left in emotional limbo like a business file waiting to be sorted.
She slipped out of her heels, curled her knees to her chest, and pulled her journal into her lap.
This one would hurt to write.
So she wrote it anyway.
📓 Ana's Journal Entry #4
He told me the truth.
I thought I wanted it.
I thought it would give me power. Peace. Maybe even some closure.
But instead… it cracked something in me.
I was never supposed to be a person in this story.
I was a solution.
A loophole.
A warm body with a legal name that came with no attachments.
He didn't lie to me tonight.
He didn't manipulate.
He just laid it bare:
"You were never supposed to be you."
And that?
That wrecked me in a way lies never could.
Because at least lies are wrapped in hope.
This was just… bare.
Unforgiving.
Honest.
So now I have a choice.
I can break.
Or I can become the version of me that no one sees coming.
The one who stays standing at the end.
Because even if I was a mistake in his plan—
I won't let myself be a regret in my own life.
Ana closed the journal, tears unshed.
She wouldn't let them fall tonight.
Not for him.
Not for her pride.
Tomorrow, the cameras would flash again.
The masks would be back on.
But in these pages—
She was still real.
To be continued…