Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 229

Chapter 229

The moment it went live, something in my chest loosened for the first time since the parking lot. I watched the notifications roll in, first a trickle then a flood shares and comments and retweets spreading across platforms faster than I could track. The view count climbed: a thousand, ten thousand, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand.

The comments were brutal, people calling her every name in the book, dissecting her body and her technique and her morals, making memes and jokes, crucifying her in the court of public opinion. And I watched it all from behind my anonymous screen, my face expressionless, my hands steady. This was war, and I had just fired the first shot.

I would never burn Helix down. I would never betray Celeste, not for Seraphine, not for anyone. But Seraphine had set me up and now wanted to release a sex video of me. Fine. Let her. It would not carry the same weight as hers, because whatever else people wanted to say about me, I had not slept with a married man. I certainly had not slept with my own best friend’s husband. If Seraphine wanted to drag me through the mud, she was going to be lying right there in it beside me.

One o’clock came and went. I sat at my desk, my phone face-up beside me, waiting for the notification that would change everything, the notification that Seraphine had fulfilled her promise and my video was out in the world for everyone to see. But

it did not come.

I refreshed my email. Nothing. I checked every social media platform, searched for my name, searched for Kingsley’s name, searched for any mention of a video involving us. Nothing. The hours crawled by. Two o’clock. Three o’clock. Four o’clock.

I paced my office. I drank water I did not taste. I stared at the ceiling and tried to breathe. What was she waiting for? Why had she not released the video? Was she saving it for a more dramatic moment? Was she planning something bigger?

By evening, I had convinced myself she was toying with me, that she wanted me to suffer, to spend every moment waiting for the axe to fall, jumping at every notification, terrified of what was coming. And it was working. I was a wreck, barely holding myself together, my mind spinning through every possible scenario.

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