SCORNED EX WIFE Queen Of Ashes (Camille and Stefan)

Chapter 107

Chapter 107

The restaurant occupied the entire top floor of a Midtown hotel, overlooking Central Park. Camille arrived fifteen minutes early, a tactic Victoria

had taught her, secure the

position of power, choose your seat, control the encounter from the first moment.

She selected a corner table with her back to the wall, facing both elevators. The

host seated her with a professional smile, leaving her alone with her thoughts and a sparkling water she wouldn't drink.

Camille smoothed her navy dress, a simple design that concealed the tension in her body. The silver rose pendant Alexander had returned to her hung at her throat, a reminder of who she had been before Rose's betrayal, before Victoria's transformation.

Her phone buzzed with a text from Alexander: *Everything okay?*

She typed: *They haven't arrived yet.*

*I'm in the lobby if you need me.*

A small smile touched her lips. Alexander

hadn't questioned her decision to face her parents alone, but he'd

insisted on accompanying her to the hotel. Her shield, waiting in the background.

The elevator doors opened, and Camille's smile

vanished. Her stomach tightened into a knot.

Margaret and Richard Lewis stepped into the restaurant, looking smaller than she remembered. Her mother scanned the space, hands clutched around

her purse. Her father stood slightly behind, his shoulders rounded in a way Camille had never seen before.

They spotted her. Hesitated. Then walked toward her table with careful steps.

Camille did not stand. Did not smile. Did not offer her cheek for the kiss her mother Teaned in to give before thinking better of it.

"Camille," Margaret said, the name catching in her throat. "Thank you for, for agreeing

to meet us."

"Please," Richard gestured to the chairs. "May we sit?"

Camille nodded, her face revealing nothing. Victoria would have been proud.

They settled awkwardly, all the social

graces they'd drilled into her now useless in the face of their broken relationship.

"You look well," her mother tried. "Healthy."

"I am," Camille kept her voice neutral. "Victoria takes good care of

her investments."

Her mother flinched at the word "investments." Her father cleared his throat.

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Chapter 107

"Camille, we..." Richard began.

"Why did you want to meet?" Camille cut him off. Direct. No small talk.

Her parents exchanged glances. Margaret nodded slightly, and Richard reached down for a leather satchel he'd placed beside his chair. He removed a flat package wrapped in blue cloth and placed it on the tab "We wanted to give you these," he said. "They're yours. They've always been

yours."

Camille didn't touch the package. "What is it?"

Margaret's eyes filled with tears. "Your journals. From when you were a girl. Before... Before Rose came."

The words hit Camille like a physical blow. Her journals. The ones

Rose had found

and read aloud mockingly. The ones that had disappeared after her "accident."

"You kept them?" Camille couldn't hide her surprise.

"We found them when we were cleaning out your old room," Richard

explained. "After your... after the news about

your car in the river. We couldn't bear to throw them away."

Camille looked at the package, still not touching it. "And now

you want to return them because you know I'm alive."

"No," Margaret shook her head, a tear spilling down her

cheek. "We want to return them

because we've read them. All of them. And we..." Her voice broke completely.

Richard covered his wife's hand with his own.

"We failed you, Camille. In ways we're only beginning to understand. Your journals, they show a pattern we were tod blind to

see."

A server approached, sensing the tension. Camille requested water for

the table and said they weren't ready to order.

the server left, she reached for the package, unwrapping

different colors and sizes. Her childhood

pattern?" Camille asked, though she

Margaret

tears. "How Rose manipulated all of us. How we always took her

things that

Richard said softly. "Page

then opened the small green notebook.

old self had written:

yelled at me again for making

her to come to the movies with me

left without her on purpose. Why doesn't Mom ever believe me? Rose smiled when Mom sent me to

SMILED. Like

waiting in the lobby for Rose, who never

feeling knowing

The helplessness of not

of entries like that,"

her voice hollow with regret. "So many times we

journal. "Why are you showing

the truth,"

Rose did. What we allowed her

want to apologize," Margaret added. "Not because we expect

deserve to hear

who

confronting them, making them suffer for their betrayal, walking

Victoria had trained her

Victoria hadn't prepared her for genuine remorse, for her proud father with reddened

mother

harder than she intended. "When I told you about her affair with Stefan. When I needed you most. You

"And it will haunt

what we wanted

"That our perfect

such ugly truths. That our adopted

be capable of such

she tried to kill me," Camille

Her parents flinched.

didn't know.

asking for forgiveness, Richard said. "Or

us. We know

do you want, then?" Camille asked, steadier than

Margaret reached across the

hand. Just... to know you. In whatever

your terms."

us to be

if it's just distant acquaintances who meet for coffee

of her childhood suffering, preserved by the very people who

if I can do that," she said

nodded, drawing back her hand. "The

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Chapter 107

strange feeling washed over Camille, not quite forgiveness, but something adjacent to it. Recognition, perhaps, that her parents were as human and flawed as she was. That Rose

time," Camille said finally. "This isn't

flickered in her mother's eyes, fragile, cautious

the time you

"I could perhaps...

Rose." Her voice hardened on

this. Just to

was painful to witness. It spoke of

terrible belief that

equally terrible knowledge that she had survived only to

despise them.

said, his voice rough with emotion. "That's

food

particularly interested in eating. As

with the server, Camille studied them with new eyes. They had aged years in

Gray dominated

now. Lines had deepened around her mother's

When the

the table, the uncomfortable silence of people who once knew everything about each other

news about

neutral territory. "It's an extraordinary

small bit of pride.

infrastructure completely."

Camille?" her mother asked suddenly, the

Camille off

the

to be. Happiness wasn't the goal

Richard asked

An image of Alexander

in Camille's mind, his smile,

her as if

"Now, there might be room

understanding something

You deserve that. You always

They

the meal ended, they stood together, the moment of

I..." Margaret began hesitantly, "may I hug you?

hesitated, then gave a small nod. Her mother's arms

the scent of her perfume unleashing a

good and painful. The embrace

slightly stiff,

for a hug, respecting the boundaries Camille had

if... when you're ready."

smaller and more fragile than the parents who had once loomed so large in her life. As

them, she sat back

for the

green one again,

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