SCORNED EX WIFE Queen Of Ashes (Camille and Stefan)

Chapter 200

Camille sat at their kitchen table, watching Alexander pour coffee into two mugs. His movements were the same as always - careful, precise, loving. He added cream to hers without asking, remembering exactly how she liked it. The small gesture that used to make her heart warm now felt like another piece of evidence in his performance.

She'd barely slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw those photographs of Victoria. The security plans. Richard Pierce's journal entries filled with pain and anger. Alexander's handwritten revenge list with dates that proved he'd planned their wedding knowing the truth about his uncle.

"You're quiet this morning," Alexander said, setting her mug down and kissing the top of her head. Another normal gesture that now felt poisoned.

Camille wrapped her fingers around the warm ceramic, needing something solid to hold onto. "We need to talk."

Something in her tone made Alexander pause. He sat down across from her, his dark eyes searching her face. "What's wrong?"

For a moment, she almost lost her nerve. This was Alexander. The man who'd held her when she cried about Rose. Who'd stood beside her when Victoria was in the hospital. Who'd promised to love her forever in front of everyone they cared about.

But then she remembered his voice in the darkness last night: *She suspects nothing.*

"I found the safe," she said quietly.

Alexander went completely still. The coffee mug stopped halfway to his lips. His face didn't change, but something shifted behind his eyes. The warmth

disappeared, replaced by something cold and calculating.

"Which safe?" he asked, but they both knew he was buying time.

"The one in your office. Behind the cabinet. With the surveillance photos of Victoria."

Alexander set down his mug with careful control. He stared at the table for a long moment, and Camille could almost see him deciding what to say. How much to admit. How to handle this complication in his plan.

"I can explain," he said finally.

"Can you?" Camille's voice cracked despite her efforts to stay calm. "Can you explain why you have dozens of photos of Victoria taken during our wedding? Can you explain the security plans for Kane Industries? Can you explain Richard Pierce's journal?"

Alexander looked up at her then, and she saw something she'd never seen before. Not the loving husband, not the supportive partner. This was someone else entirely. Someone who'd been hiding behind Alexander's face all along.

"Yes," he said simply. "I can explain all of it."

Camille had expected him to deny everything. To lie, to make excuses, to try to convince her she'd misunderstood what she'd seen. His calm admission hit her like a physical blow.

"Victoria Kane destroyed my uncle," Alexander said, his voice steady and cold. "She deliberately covered up a factory accident that killed seventeen people. When my uncle Richard threatened to expose her, she systematically destroyed his company and his life."

Camille felt the room spinning around her. "That's not true. Victoria would never.."

"Seventeen people died because of faulty equipment that Victoria knew was dangerous," Alexander continued, ignoring her protest. "Workers with families. People with children. Victoria chose profits over human lives, and when my uncle tried to do the right thing, she crushed him like an insect."

"You're lying." But even as she said it, doubt crept into her voice. She'd seen Richard Pierce's journal entries. The pain in those pages had felt real.

live. Victoria made sure no one would hire him, no bank would lend to him, no business partner would trust him. She

if that's true," Camille said, her voice shaking, "what does that have to

out the night before our engagement party," Alexander said. "Someone sent me documents. Proof of what Victoria had done. Evidence that the woman who saved you was the same woman who

felt tight. She remembered their engagement party. How Alexander had seemed different after talking to someone she didn't recognize. How he'd been quieter, more

you decided to use me," she

an empire on

Pain flashed across his features. "It wasn't

of our relationship was real, Alexander? How much of

"I loved you before I knew who Victoria really was. Those first months, everything you felt - I felt it too. When I realized you were

decided to destroy me

her, and she saw genuine anguish in his eyes. "But somewhere along the way, my feelings became real again. The love I felt for you before I learned

it sounded more like a scream. "Real? You call surveillance photos and security plans real

to protect you from Rose real love. I

her voice breaking. "You never told me the truth. You let me believe our marriage was

not your mother," Alexander said sharply. "She's the woman who adopted you for her own purposes, just like I married you

compare yourself to Victoria. She saved me. She gave me a family, a future, a reason to live

of seventeen innocent people." Alexander's voice rose for the first time. "Everything Victoria Kane has, every dollar in her account,

"Stop. Just stop talking." "You need to hear this. You need to

getting louder, more desperate. "The kind who found me bleeding in a parking garage and gave me a

families for profit. The kind who covers up mass murder to protect

screamed. "You took everything real between us and poisoned it with your need for revenge. You made our wedding day a lie. You made every 'I love you' a calculation. You made our entire marriage part of

too, reaching for her. "Camille,

away from him, her whole body shaking.

you is real now. Everything I feel, everything I want

While I was dancing with you, while I was promising to love you forever, you were already

evidence to expose

were using our marriage to get

I handled this wrong. I know

known what Victoria did, would you have believed me? Would

chosen honesty over deception." Camille's voice was raw with

trust over manipulation. I would have chosen the man I

stranger standing in

man you fell in

her head. "The man I fell in love with

pretenses. He wouldn't have used our honeymoon to

call him my

toward the bedroom, her legs unsteady.

into it. "I can't

this. We can find a way