The CEO Above My Desk (Mckenzie Shinabery) novel Chapter 176

Chapter 176

Violet

Camille doesn’t come out of the bathroom for almost ten minutes.

At first, I try to give her space.

After everything we just saw, she deserves that much.

But the longer the silence stretches, the more the anger burning inside me starts shifting into something else. Worry. Guilt. Fear.

Because this entire situation feels like it’s poisoning everyone around us one person at a time.

I slowly close the tablet and stand from the couch, my legs feeling oddly weak beneath me as I walk toward the bathroom door.

The penthouse feels different now. Too quiet downstairs. Too loud upstairs.

The muffled yelling from the loft still echoes faintly through the ceilings while Rowan, Theo, and Devin continue trying to contain the fallout from the explosion. Every now and then another sharp voice cuts through the glass upstairs, followed by pacing footsteps or something slamming onto the conference table hard enough to vibrate through the floor.

Meanwhile down here? Everything feels broken.

I stop outside the bathroom door and knock softly. “Camille?”

Silence.

For a second, I think maybe she’s crying too hard to answer.

Then finally… “I’m alive,” she mutters weakly from inside.

I exhale quietly, resting my forehead briefly against the doorframe. “Can I come in?”

Another pause. Then the lock clicks open. I push the door open carefully and my chest tightens immediately.

She looks wrecked.

Mascara smeared beneath her eyes. Pale skin flushed red from crying and getting sick. Her blonde hair is messy now, falling around her face while she sits curled slightly forward on the edge of the bathtub wrapped in one of Rowan’s ridiculously soft white towels.

She looks small. Not physically. Emotionally.

Like somebody reached inside her chest tonight and twisted everything apart.

And honestly? I hate Avery a little for this. Not because of Theo. Not even because of the photos.

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要

Chapter 176

But because somehow this entire nightmare keeps hurting people I care about over and over again.

Camille looks up at me tiredly. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“That’s honestly worse somehow.”

Despite everything, a tiny smile pulls at my mouth. I walk further inside before sitting beside her carefully on the edge of the tub.

For a moment, neither of us says anything. The bathroom is warm from the shower steam still clinging to the mirrors, but Camille’s hands are freezing when I gently take one.

She laughs softly after a second. Broken. Exhausted.

“You know,” she mutters, staring down at the tile floor, “if someone told me a month ago I’d be sitting in a billionaire penthouse bathroom crying over espionage blackmail photos.

“If these photos go public…” I hesitate. “Are you okay with that?”

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Her expression crumples slightly. Because she knows exactly what I mean. Theo. Devin.

Their reputations. Their careers. Their humiliation.

She looks away slowly toward the marble counter beside the sink.

“I don’t know,” she admits honestly.

And honestly? Fair. I don’t push her. I just sit beside her quietly while she thinks.

The muffled yelling upstairs continues faintly through the ceiling. Rowan. Theo. Devin. Still trying to contain the visible fire while Camille and I just uncovered the one burning underneath the city itself.

Finally, Camille rubs her face tiredly. “I’m not even mad he slept with her,” she whispers.

That surprises me enough that I look at her fully.

“I’m mad he didn’t tell me.”

Oh…. Oh that hurts worse. Because she trusted him. And now every secret feels infected.

She exhales shakily before continuing. “And now I’m sitting here pregnant with his baby while finding out there are secret pictures of him wrapped around another woman.”

My chest tightens instantly. “Camille-”

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The CEO Above My Desk