SCORNED EX WIFE Queen Of Ashes (Camille and Stefan)

Chapter 82

The cabin door opened with a soft click. Alexander looked up from Ruth's journal, his fingers still resting on the worn leather cover. His expression shifted from surprise to something more guarded, hope held carefully in check.

Camille stood in the doorway, backlit by the morning sun. The ocean breeze had

loosened strands of her hair from its

perfect arrangement, giving her a wildness that contradicted the careful image she'd maintained since her transformation. She stepped inside, letting the door close behind her.

"I sent the helicopter back," she said, her voice steadier than she felt.

Alexander set the journal aside. "You're staying?"

"For now." Camille moved further into the cabin, noticing the small details she'd missed before, the coffee mug with a chipped rim, the wrinkled shirt

hanging by the tiny

bathroom, the scattered notes in Alexander's handwriting. Signs of actual living, not just performing.

The silence between them stretched, filled with unspoken questions.

"The view from the bow is incredible," she finally said. "You can

see the whole city. All those buildings, all those lives. From here, they look so small."

"Perspective changes everything." Alexander remained seated, giving her space.

Camille touched

the silver rose pendant at her throat. "When I was little, I used to imagine who I might become. A doctor, a teacher, an astronaut. Normal dreams." Her mouth curved in a sad smile. "Then I became Stefan's wife creation."

"And now?" Alexander asked quietly.

"Now I want to be someone new." The words felt strange on her

tongue, frightening

and liberating all at once. "Someone who makes her own name, not just wears someone else's."

Alexander's face remained calm, but his knuckles whitened slightly as his hands

gripped the edge of the desk. "What does that look like for you?"

Camille turned to the window, watching

the waves catch sunlight. “I don't know exactly. But I know what it doesn't

look like." She took a deep breath. "It doesn't look like spending

my life feeding a hunger for

revenge that never gets satisfied. It doesn't look like measuring my worth by how successfully I destroy others."

She faced him again. "When I was in that parking garage, bleeding and broken, I thought I'd lost

everything. Victoria

showed me I was wrong, I'd lost things, but not everything. Not myself."

gave you a path," Alexander

path of fire." Camille's voice grew stronger. "But fire does two things, it destroys and it transforms. I've done enough destroying. I want

easily startled. "The Phoenix Foundation

Something

rebuild after betrayal."

nothing after giving everything. People like I was. People like you were, alone in that hospital." The words

won't be easy," Alexander said.

know." Camille's fingers nervously traced

on the desk. "Victoria won't understand. She might

did to me."

you tell

Rose tried to murder my body, but staying

soul." Camille's voice cracked slightly.

her destroy any more

single step closer.

gave me

to build the grid, to

"And Rose and Stefan?"

face legal consequences for what they did. But I won't spend another day thinking about them.

of her words seemed to physically lighten her.

deeper.

help," Alexander said simply. "In whatever way you'll let

suspicion or Camille Lewis's naive trust. Just a

asking for truth.

never left hers. “Because I've spent years watching you from a distance, first with gratitude, then with worry, then with admiration. Because

walk through such darkness and still carry light

closer until barely a foot separated them. "Because the

a hospital room is the same woman who stands

her cheeks. "You make me sound

Alexander shook his head. "I

too

swayed gently beneath

window, Camille could see the

and sharp as a fresh

"Every step, in any

that's what you want."

Camille studied

forgotten what it felt

hung between them, an offering, not

a smile breaking across his face like sunrise. "Then we'll build

not grabbing, just offering connection. Camille looked at it for a long moment before placing her hand in his. His fingers were warm, solid,

no idea what I'm doing.

the beautiful part."

speaking as someone who watched you systematically dismantle two empires, I'm

her, steadied

deeper, past the armor Victoria had helped her

Stefan had withdrawn. For the first time in

what she could give them or do for

admitted, the

held

something that

at the cabin

One of the engineers stood

but we've got some anomalous