Act Like You Love Me (Jessica) novel Chapter 159

Chapter 159

Fiona’s POV

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“You have a meeting with Alina Kuznetsova, the CEO of Aura Borealis Textiles. She’s ready to discuss the investment in your new line, Miss Macron.”

I looked up from the sketchpad on my desk, my eyes stinging from hours of staring at fine charcoal lines.

My assistant, Sarah, stood by the door with her tablet pressed against her chest, her expression hopeful.

“Borealis?” I repeated. “The Russian conglomerate? You’re sure she didn’t cancel?”

“Confirmed and scheduled,” Sarah nodded. “She’s at the Grandyatt.”

“Accept it immediately. Tell her I’ll be there twenty minutes early” I said, my voice steady despite the sudden flutter in my chest.

Sarah nodded and slipped out of the room, leaving me in the silence of my small, rented studio.

Alone, I stared out the window of my small, rented office space.

The walls were thin enough that I could hear the muffled sound of a coffee machine next door.

It was a humiliating downgrade from the glass-and-steel skyscraper that once bore my name in neon lights.

Back then, I was the queen of the industry, a top-tier model and fashion mogul whose inheritance alone could fund a small nation.

Then Aaron happened. Or rather, my betrayal of him happened

I still remember the morning it started. A government letter, cold and clinical, stating my luxury fashion house was being shuttered for “regulatory discrepancies” that didn’t exist.

Within forty-eight hours, my bank accounts were frozen.

My inheritance, the safety net my family had built for generations… everything simply evaporated. It was as if someone had reached into the sky and erased my star.

At first, I didn’t know who possessed that kind of silent, surgical power.

The fact that the person was silently gutting my life without ever showing their face made me almost run mad.

I spent three months on the verge of a breakdown, begging government officials for answers, only to be met with blank

stares.

My parents, terrified of the shadow looming over us, couldn’t help.

Even Eric, the man I was cheating with, turned his back on me. Despite the Tyrone money his branch of the family held, he just shrugged me off.

“You just have to start over, Fiona,” he had said, his voice bored, lacking even a shred of empathy

He didn’t understand. None of them did. It wasn’t just about the money or the loss of the penthouse. It was about the invisible hand systematically deleting me from existence.

It was about waking up every day to find another piece of my life scrubbed away

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Chapter 159

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When it became clear that no one was going to help me that t Macron name had become radioactive, I turned to the one person I believed still had the power to save me.

What I didn’t know then was that he wasn’t just watching the fire he was the one who had struck the match. He was the pioneer of my ruin.

I went to him with a strategy born of pure desperation and a lifetime of being told I was irresistible.

I thought that despite the way things had ended, some remnant of the boy who once worshipped me would still be there, buried beneath the ice.

I believed I could wade back into his life, play the part of the version of myself he had loved, and slowly regain my standing

I went to him because I was convinced I still held the reins of his heart.

I remembered the night he brought Jessica to that dinner, parading her around as his new girlfriend.

I had watched them with a hawk’s eye, and I was certain it was a performance-a clumsy, theatrical attempt to wound me.

I thought he had hired her just to prove he had “moved on,” which, in my mind, only confirmed my importance.

If he had to work that hard to hurt me, it meant I still mattered.

I believed that if I looked broken enough, I could prey on his “weakness” for me.

I thought I could seduce him back into my orbit and convince him to stop the bleeding of my business with a single word.

What I didn’t know, what I couldn’t possibly have grasped-was that his heart didn’t just belong to someone else. It was consumed by her.

Aaron wasn’t destroying me because he was bitter about our breakup or the pride I had bruised.

He was destroying me because he believed I had a hand in Jessica’s disappearance.

To him, I wasn’t a former lover to be spited; I was a threat to the woman he truly loved. The mere thought that I might have caused her harm had turned him into something monstrous.

He had aimed all that protective rage directly at me, not out of lingering attachment, but out of a terrifying, absolute devotion to her.

I looked at a discarded fabric swatch on my desk, the edges frayed and dull.

My mind drifted back to high school, to the girl I used to consider a non-entity: Jessica. My nemesis.

I had spent years making sure Jessica didn’t know her own worth convinced that if I could keep her small, I would stay big

I saw the way Aaron looked at her when he thought no one was watching.

Even when he was at his worst, when he was bullying and teasing her-there was still an undeniable energy he carried whenever she was in the room.

It was a gravitational pull he hadn’t even realized he was yielding to.

Deep down, I think I knew he liked her long before he did.

I was terrified that the “boring,” beautiful nerd would eventually steal his attention for good

I saw the raw potential in her, the kind of natural grace that did need the labels or the makeup I hid behind

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Chapter 159

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My cruelty wasn’t just for fun; it was a desperate attempt to keep her small, to make sure she never looked in a mirror and realized she was exactly the kind of woman a man like Aaron would stay for.

Cheating on Aaron with Eric had been a desperate attempt to fa the flames of my own ego.

I wanted to prove I was so desirable that I could have any Tyron I wanted.

Eric had played on my fears, whispering that basketball players were all the same, that once Aaron hit the limelight, he would discard me for someone new.

“Be the one to strike first,” Eric had urged.

I had planned to keep Eric a secret until Aaron’s career reached is peak, just to see if he’d stay true. If he did, I would have cut Eric loose and played the loyal wife.

But fate is a cruel mirror. Aaron walked in on us, and the look in his eyes-the total, devastating loss of respect-was worse than any scream.

put up a tough facade. I acted like I didn’t care. But every time I saw him with Jessica afterward, it felt like a slow burn in

I

my marrow.

I had opened the door for him to realize that the soul he actually belonged with was the girl I had tried to destroy.

I had handed him the map to her, and in return, he had wiped me off the map entirely.

I sighed and closed my laptop, the screen reflecting my tired face in the dimming office light.

I lived in a small bungalow now, a far cry from the sprawling estates of my youth, and I spent every waking hour in this cramped space trying to build something from the ashes.

My mind drifted to Aaron again, and I immediately scolded myself.

‘Stop it. He belongs to someone else now. He has a life, a son, a world that doesn’t include me.’

I needed to forget him. But how could I? He was the only man who was ever ready to burn the world for me, and I was the one who had handed him the matches.

I won’t deny the jealousy that still lingers when I see the way he takes care of Jessica-the way he shields her, the way his gaze softens when she enters a room.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, knowing that could have been me if I hadn’t been so reckless.

But I didn’t act on those emotions. I couldn’t. I had already seen what happened when I let my impulses drive the car: I ended up in a wreck that cost me everything.

I have to prove I’ve changed. Not for him—he wouldn’t care if I became a saint or a martyr-but because if I don’t, I’ll never survive this second chance. This tiny office, this struggling brand. it’s all I have left.

I also had to prove it to David, and especially to Jessica.

I can still hear her voice from the day I finally gathered the courage to try and apologize. It wasn’t the stuttering, timid voice of the girl I used to shove into lockers; it was the voice of a woman who had found her power and built a fortress around it.

“How do I know this isn’t a tactic?” she had asked, her eyes cold and unwavering as they pinned me to the spot

“I’ve seen this movie before, Fiona. The villain plays nice just to get close enough to strike harder

Her words had cut deep, slicing through my pride. But I didn’t lack down. I didn’t flare up in anger like the old Fiora would have.

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