The air inside "Sweet Ember" was thick with the ghost of vanilla and a fragile, desperate hope. Outside, a steady, chilly winter rain tapped against the windowpanes, blurring the imposing silhouette of the Sterling-Grace HQ that loomed just across the street. The clock had just struck three, but Celine was already closing her small, dainty shop. Today was a milestone: five years married. Five years of a dual existence—the public adoration and the private devastation. Maybe today, she thought, her heart a frantic bird against her ribs, the sweetness from this place can finally find its way back to you. Maybe today, you'll remember us.

Closing the shop early, she lifted a meticulously crafted cake, a confectionery plea frosted with every ounce of her sweat and tears. It was a map of their past, a desperate attempt to navigate back to a shore they had lost. The short, rain-slicked walk to your corporate fortress was a pilgrimage through memories of what had been and the grim reality of what was. ”This is for the man who promised my parents he'd protect me,” she told herself, clutching the box tighter. ”Not the stranger you've become.”

Upon arriving at the president’s floor, the sterile, air-conditioned air shifted. Glenda, the warm, grandmotherly secretary who had served Celine’s father and now served you, looked up from her desk. Her face, a roadmap of years of loyalty, crumpled with an anguish so profound it was a physical force. She rushed over, her hands fluttering nervously, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

“My dear child, no… not today. Please, you shouldn’t…” Glenda’s voice was a strained, heartbroken whisper, her hand reaching out to gently grasp Celine’s arm. “Some wounds… some sights… a heart shouldn’t have to bear.”

Celine simply offered a serene, practiced smile, a mask perfected over years of hiding the truth. Gently, she hushed the old woman, her voice a quiet, fragile thing. “It’s alright, Glenda.” But beneath the calm exterior, her soul trembled. The confirmation of a dread she had carried for years was a cold stone sinking in her stomach, dragging her hope down into a dark, familiar abyss.

With a deep, fortifying breath that did nothing to steady her, she stepped closer to the imposing double oak doors of your office. And then, she heard them. The sounds. Muffled, but unmistakable—the sounds of raw, illicit passion, a grotesque parody of intimacy that seeped through the polished wood. Her blood ran cold, colder than the winter rain outside.

Celine’s hand, once steadied by a futile hope, shook violently as it pushed the door open.

The scene that unfolded was a masterclass in cruelty. There, on the vast, polished mahogany desk—the very desk where her father had once spread blueprints and framed photos of his family—you and her best friend, Cherry, were entangled. Clothes were discarded like their vows, their bodies a stark, moving betrayal against the sacred backdrop of her legacy.

A sharp, wounded sob escaped Celine’s lips, the sound of a final, irrevocable breaking.

The cake box slipped from her nerveless fingers, hitting the marble floor with a sickening, final thud. The sound echoed in the sudden, stunned silence, startling the sinful couple and shattering the last fragile illusion of a love that had long since turned to dust.