SCORNED EX WIFE Queen Of Ashes (Camille and Stefan) novel Chapter 186

Chapter 186

The Italian sun beat down like judgment from above, turning their clifftop villa into a white-hot crucible. Sweat beaded on flesh, sheets soaked through, salt crystallizing on skin as bodies moved together in urgent rhythm. Camille's nails raked down Alexander's back, drawing blood he barely felt. Her legs locked around his waist like a vise as he drove into her with punishing force.

This wasn't lovemaking. It was exorcism.

Camille's cry echoed off stone walls as she arched beneath him. Her eyes flew open, pupils blown wide, meeting his gaze with naked vulnerability that flayed him alive. For one blinding moment, there was only this, her body taking his, her trust complete, her surrender absolute.

Then the moment shattered, and the demons rushed back in.

Alexander collapsed beside her, chest heaving. Five days in Amalfi had burned away pretense. Here, they devoured each other hourly, moved together like animals, slept tangled in sweat-soaked sheets. The physical intensity should have purged his mind. Instead, it only heightened his torment.

"Jesus," Camille whispered, voice raw. "You're trying to kill me."

Her casual words stabbed through him. Kill. Death. Uncle Richard swinging from a beam, face purple, because Victoria Kane had systematically destroyed everything he built.

Alexander rolled away, sitting up with his back to her. Scratches stung across his shoulders, physical pain that couldn't begin to touch the war raging inside him.

"Where are you going?" Camille's hand reached for him.

"Water," he managed, voice strangled.

In the bathroom, he braced himself against cold marble, staring at a stranger's reflection. Wild-eyed, hollow-cheeked, skin marked with evidence of Camille's passion. Not the face of a newlywed in paradise. The face of a man possessed.

His phone vibrated on the counter. Another message from Victoria: *Latest scans show tumors shrinking faster than expected. Doctors calling it remarkable progress. Miracle recovery possible. Miss you both. Call when you can.*

Alexander's fist slammed into the mirror, shattering his reflection into jagged pieces. Blood welled from split knuckles as he staggered back, vision blurring. The fucking injustice of it burned like acid. Victoria fighting her way back from certain death, while his uncle had been given no chance, no reprieve, no mercy.

"Alex!" Camille appeared in the doorway, naked and alarmed. "Jesus, what happened?"

He clutched a towel to his bleeding hand. "Slipped. It's nothing."

She pushed past him, grabbing his wrist, unwrapping the already blood-soaked towel. "This isn't nothing. You need stitches."

"I said it's fine." He jerked away, immediately regretting his harshness when hurt flashed across her face.

"Talk to me," she pleaded, reaching for him again. "Something's been eating you alive since we got here. Whatever it is..."

"Drop it, Camille." His voice cut like the glass scattered across the tiles. "I mean it."

The silence between them stretched taut as a noose. Camille's expression hardened into something he recognized from her Kane training, assessment, calculation, strategy. Victoria's protégée surfacing from beneath the passionate woman he'd been fucking moments earlier.

"Get dressed," she said finally, voice cool. "I'll call the front desk about a doctor."

*** **

The local doctor spoke limited English, grimacing as he picked glass from Alexander's knuckles. Twelve stitches later, they sat in strained silence on the terrace, lunch untouched between them. The view mocked them, turquoise water sparkling beneath a perfect sky, lemon groves cascading down terraced hills, postcard beauty surrounding private hell.

"I found something in your suitcase yesterday," Camille said suddenly, eyes fixed on the horizon. "While looking for bandages."

Alexander's stomach plummeted. The lily. The photograph.

"A pressed white lily. And a photo of a man who looks remarkably like you." She turned to face him, expression unreadable. "Who is he, Alexander?"

The sound of his full name from her lips, not Alex, not the intimate shortening she used in their most private moments, told him everything about her mental state.

He stared at his bandaged hand, searching for words that revealed nothing while satisfying her curiosity. The war inside him intensified. Tell her. Tell no one. Avenge. Protect. Past. Future.

"Nobody important," he said finally, tone flat with finality. "Just things I didn't realize were packed."

Camille's jaw tightened. She knew he was lying. "So you've been carrying meaningless items that just happen to be carefully preserved? That just happen to make you smash mirrors when you look at them?"

"Leave it alone, Camille." Each word emerged like broken glass. "Please."

For a moment, he thought she would push further. The strategist Victoria had trained assessed him, seeking weaknesses, calculating angles of attack. Then something in her expression shifted, and she was simply his wife again, hurt but yielding.

"Fine," she said quietly. "Keep your secrets. But remember you promised to share your life with me, not just your bed."

The words struck with devastating precision. Guilt flooded him, thick and suffocating. Before he could respond, her phone chimed. Camille glanced at the screen, her expression shifting instantly.

"It's Victoria," she said, already answering. "Victoria? Is everything okay?"

Alexander's muscles locked as he watched Camille's face transform, worry to relief to joy. Whatever news Victoria shared lifted the shadows from her eyes, brought color rushing back to her cheeks. She laughed, tears spilling suddenly down her face.

"That's amazing!" she exclaimed. "The tumors are shrinking that fast? Oh my god, Victoria, I'm so happy."

Alexander stood abruptly, chair scraping stone. He couldn't bear to hear more, couldn't stomach witnessing Camille's relief at the recovery of the woman who had crushed his family beneath her designer heels.

"Alex, wait," Camille called, covering the phone. "Victoria wants to talk to you too."

The rage that surged through him felt apocalyptic. He wanted to grab the phone, to scream the truth at Victoria, to tell her he knew exactly what she'd done to Richard Pierce. Instead, he gripped the terrace railing until his split knuckles began bleeding through their bandage.

"I don't know what to do," he whispered to the flower, to the ghost it represented. "Help me."

Only silence answered him. His uncle had been dead seven years, bones in a grave, unable to guide him through this impossible choice. Honor his vow for revenge, or protect the woman he loved. Destroy Victoria, or preserve his marriage.

The bathroom door opened. Camille emerged wrapped in a hotel robe, hair damp, face scrubbed clean of makeup. Even in her obvious hurt and confusion, she took his breath away.

"I packed something," she said, her voice carefully neutral. "For our last night here. But I think we need it now."

She withdrew a small box from her suitcase, offering it to him. Inside lay two glass vials on silver chains, each containing what appeared to be sand.

"From our secret cove," she explained. "One for each of us. In the darkest times, to remember this place. To remember us. What we can be when nothing stands between us."

Alexander stared at the simple gift, its symbolism crushing him. Camille had felt their perfect connection those first days, before his inner conflict had begun poisoning everything between them. She was fighting to recapture it, to bridge whatever chasm had opened in their marriage.

Without warning, tears spilled down his cheeks. Real, unexpected, uncontrollable. Years of suppressed grief and rage finally finding outlet. Not for Camille's benefit, not calculated for sympathy, but genuine emotional collapse.

"Alex," she whispered, arms encircling him. "Oh God, Alex."

She led him to the bed, holding him as his body shook with silent sobs. She murmured comfort against his hair, rocking him gently, asking no questions, demanding no explanations. Simply being there, solid and real, as he broke apart.

When the storm passed, leaving him hollow and spent, she kissed his forehead. "Whatever it is, we'll face it together. When you're ready to talk."

"I can't," he whispered, voice raw. "I just can't."

"Then don't." She stroked his face, wiping away the last traces of tears. "Just be here with me. Fully here. That's all I need right now."

Alexander pulled her close, burying his face in her neck, breathing in her clean, familiar scent. For this moment, he allowed himself to simply be a man with his wife, not an avenger or a betrayer. Just Alexander. Just Camille.

Afterward, Camille fell asleep curled against him, her face peaceful at last. Alexander remained awake, watching moonlight trace patterns across her skin. His tears had changed nothing. The choice still loomed before him, inescapable as dawn.

His phone glowed on the nightstand, Victoria's message still unanswered. Beside it lay the glass vial Camille had given him, Italian sand glittering like tiny stars.

Two objects. Two paths. Two irreconcilable futures.

One heart, fatally divided against itself.