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,"

stronger. "But fire does two things, it

easily startled. "The Phoenix Foundation

relations move. Something that actually

rebuild after betrayal."

discarded, anyone who's been told they're nothing after giving everything. People like I was. People like you were, alone in that hospital." The words hung

easy," Alexander said. "Building something meaningful never

know." Camille's fingers nervously traced

won't understand. She might see it as

did to me."

you

body, but staying consumed

Camille's voice cracked slightly. "That I'm

destroy any more

closer. "You'll still run Kane

division, yes. Victoria gave me

it. And I'll use it to build the grid, to fund

"And Rose and Stefan?"

legal consequences for what they did. But I won't spend another

weight of her words seemed to physically lighten her. She stood taller,

deeper.

want to help," Alexander said simply. "In

was direct, without Victoria's trained suspicion or Camille Lewis's naive trust. Just

asking for truth.

spent years watching you from a distance, first with gratitude, then with worry, then with admiration.

such darkness

closer until barely a foot separated them.

stranger in a hospital room is the same woman who stands here now, finally free to

to her cheeks. "You make me sound better than

head. "I just see

too hurt to

gently beneath them, a living thing

forward. Through the window, Camille could see the horizon line

met water, clean and sharp as

"Every step, in any

that's what you want."

Camille studied

sincerity in his eyes, the tension in his jaw, the careful way he held himself, offering without demanding. She'd forgotten what it felt like to be offered something with no debt attached. "Yes," she

them, an offering,

across his face like sunrise. "Then

not grabbing, just offering connection. Camille looked at it for a long moment before placing her hand in his. His fingers were warm, solid, his grip gentle but secure. "I should warn you," she

I'm doing. All my plans

part." Alexander's thumb

speaking as someone who watched you systematically dismantle two

of his hand grounded her, steadied her against the

past the armor Victoria had helped her

For the

her, not what she could give them or

scared," she admitted,

voice held no

doing something

the cabin

engineers stood

Mr. Pierce, but we've got some