POV: Alexandra Vaughn
There's a sound guilt makes.
It's not loud; not the kind of noise you can escape by covering your ears. It's quiet, persistent, like a whisper pressed against your conscience until you can't tell where it ends and you begin.
That's what I heard the morning after Lydia's dinner.
Guilt. Whispering.
But not loud enough to make me stop.
Work should've been my refuge. The courtroom, the structure, the order, all things that used to make sense. But that morning, even as I stood before a judge delivering an argument that would've earned me another headline, my mind wasn't in the room.
It was back at Lydia's apartment.
At the flicker of candlelight on Damian's face. At the way he looked at me like I was the only truth left in his world.
"Ms. Vaughn?" the judge's voice snapped me back.
I blinked, straightened my papers. "Apologies, Your Honour. I lost my train of thought."
The courtroom gasped softly; Alexandra Vaughn lost her train of thought?
I never faltered. Ever.
Until now.
After the session, I escaped to my office and shut the door. My reflection in the glass wall looked like a stranger: same polished exterior, same immaculate control; but inside, everything felt jagged.
Lydia called mid-afternoon.
"Alex! You were so quiet last night, everything okay?"
"Yes, just work."
Another lie.
She laughed, light and trusting. "I should've known. Anyway, Damian told me he's got a business trip next week; maybe to Paris. I'm thinking we'll go together! A little pre-wedding escape before all the stress."
Paris. The word stung like salt.
"Sounds… wonderful," I managed.
"Would you help me pick out some dresses tomorrow? I'd love your opinion."
I hesitated. "Of course."
Because that's what guilt does; it makes you overcompensate.
She had no idea that every smile I gave her now felt like treason.
That evening, Damian texted.
Damian: You were quiet last night.
Me: We both were.
Damian: She trusts you completely.
Me: Don't remind me.
Damian: Then maybe stop pretending we're innocent.
I stared at the message for a long time before deleting the entire thread.
He wasn't wrong. But he wasn't right either.
Because I wasn't ready to destroy Lydia's world; not yet.
No, I would do it carefully. Quietly. So no one would ever trace it back to me.
The first opportunity came sooner than I expected.
Lydia's firm handled most of CrossTech's charity contracts, but she often consulted me for advice; a habit from law school she'd never grown out of.
That afternoon, she forwarded an email from one of Damian's department heads about an internal audit. "Do you think Damian should know about this before it goes public?" she asked.
I opened the document and froze.
There it was. A minor financial irregularity buried deep in the data. Probably an error, easily fixable. But in the right hands, it could look suspicious. Damaging.
"Send it to him," I said smoothly. "Transparency builds trust."
She smiled. "You're right. He'll appreciate that."
But what I didn't tell her was that I'd already sent a copy anonymously to a journalist I'd known for years.
Not enough to destroy Damian. Just enough to rattle him.
If I could make Lydia doubt him, even for a moment, the foundation would start to crack, and when it did, I'd be right there, to catch what fell.
Or to break it completely.
That night, guilt whispered again.
You love her.
You're hurting her.
You can still stop.
But I didn't stop.
Because guilt wasn't the only voice in my head anymore.
There was another one: sharper, hungrier.
And it was winning.