Chapter 25: The Bet

Celine entered the six digit password to her apartment then walked in when it made a confirmative sound.

The familiar interior of this space used to be a safe haven for her to hide away. She had gotten this penthouse for herself, and whenever she felt like isolating herself from all the bustling noise of the entertainment industry, she had somewhere to go where no one would find her, even her manager didn’t have this address. That was what made it a sanctuary, a place she used to recuperate to lick her wounds and self soothe.

There used to be times directors would push her down to please a higher ranking actress, or times she would get backlash for something as small as an outfit she decided to wear to an occasion. Being a public figure had made her feel like the property of the whole world where everyone had a say in her life and everyone could decide what steps she should take in life even before she got the chance to even think about it herself.

With a sigh, Celine walked into the serene yet ultra luxurious space, the whole spacious living room was bathed in the warm glow of the morning sun generously streaming in through the tall floor length windows. The room looked like it was suspended high above the city because of the fabulous views from the glass windows that seemed to dissolve the boundaries between indoors and out allowing the skyline to stretch endlessly beyond.

Soft blush colored peach blossoms framed the room like living art, their petals catching the warm lights and reflecting gently off the polished floors.

Celine remembered when she had personally taken to designing this little home space she called her own. She wanted to make it the most beautiful space that would ease her heart, she had added every pretty thing she liked.

From the plush sectional sofas she had gotten in creamy neutral colors to the beautiful decorative artwork hung up on the wall. Some walls carried some of her favorite movie projects, she hung up pictures of herself in characters she had played and roles she had enjoyed playing on her walls. And another floating shelf carried her trophies.

When Celine sighted the empty space on the shelf, she remembered how a year ago she had desperately aimed to get the best actress award and reserved that space personally for the trophy.

Her nineteen year old self had been so ambitious, never giving up on her dreams of becoming an actress even though Lydia had repeatedly told her that she would amount to nothing.

’A pretty face and a cute voice reciting some lines won’t get you acting roles, you will be eaten alive by those at the top in the entertainment world. Lilian on the other hand has me and the Roberts family name backing her up. You better be happy for your sister when you see her in the spotlight.’

Lydia’s voice rang vividly wth a distant echo in Celine’s mind. She could remember how Lydia had stepped on the script she was rehearsing, squeezing it under her foot as if crushing Celine’s dreams.

When Celine had landed that first role, at the time it had felt like a victory against Lydia’s words that had almost broken her resolve. A short lived victory because she soon became her father’s own little puppet just because she spent her life longing for his approval even if deep inside she held a little resentment for how he tossed away her mother’s memories to welcome Lydia as his wife. Maybe she had held onto hope that someday he would look at her mother’s picture and tell her how much he once loved her.

Blood and familial ties were the only things every human brings to this world, we have a set of people tied to us at birth, because of this Celine was a firm believer in the ties of blood, that was one of the reasons she hadn’t given up on her father despite how badly he treated her.

Looking at it all now, Celine felt like it was all a futile effort. She believed in family so she ended up loving her step sister dearly because they were tied by blood, but look what Lilian had done to her. As for her father, he was ready to marry her off to a man who clearly didn’t love her and even cheated on her because he didn’t care if she ended up happy or not, he only cared about his own benefits.

If her father could be selfish, why couldn’t she learn to be so too?

Celine caressed the SAG awards sitting on her shelf, all the awards she had received were a fruit of her hard work, all the hours and days she had put into building her acting skills even while living in a home where she was practically abused, but not once had she given up on her career until she had landed her first role.

At the time, she hadn’t ended up receiving the best actress award, but she had still left that space empty on her shelf hoping that someday, she would work harder to fill that spot.

However, with the scandal about her wedding with Ian, it seemed that dream would never be fulfilled. A hard lump lodged itself in her throat and despite swallowing hardly, she couldn’t push it down.

“Ding dong!” The sound of her doorbell ringing startled her out of her thoughts and her head whipped in the direction of the entrance door.

Some seconds later, the doorbell rang again for a second time making her heartbeat spike.

Who could be at her door?

No one visited her here because she never gave anyone this address.

While she was lost in thought, the doorbell rang again making her shove all hesitations aside and walked up to the door. She looked through the intercom video monitor and saw a man standing at her door, she immediately recognized him to be the person who drove her here.

“Him? What is he doing here?”

The driver had seemed quite curious about her.

How did he know exactly which apartment she was in, had he followed her up here?

He rang the bell again and Celine pulled down the baseball hat she was still wearing so he wouldn’t see her face before she opened the door slowly, only a fraction.

“Sorry to bother you miss, you forgot this.” He said, holding the familiar bag forward. Seeing it, Celine almost gasped out in shock.

How could she have forgotten about that? She had packed up her wedding dress because she couldn’t just leave it in Tristan’s suite for him to come back to and be reminded of how she had given herself to him, but when she was in the car, she didn’t even realize that she hadn’t grabbed it when she hurried into the apartment complex, she had just wanted to escape any possibility of some paparazzi being aware that she owned a penthouse unit at this complex. That wariness had led her to completely forget about the wedding dress she had packed in a bag.

Celine extended her hand and took it from him.

“Thank you.” She said, still keeping her head down. She noticed him linger there for a moment before turning to leave without another word.

She peeked at the man’s retreating back, he wasn’t too tall and was of an average height yet he walked with dignity, knowing he was someone related to Tristan in some way or the other made her stare, perhaps her heart was wishing it were him instead. As Celine looked down at the dress, she suddenly panicked when she realized that he might have seen the dress in the bag while bringing it up to her, but she calmed that thought by telling herself that he wouldn’t even know who she was even if he did see the wedding dress unless he saw her at the wedding yesterday which was unlikely.

Kaleb didn’t mind not getting to see her face even after coming up to deliver the wedding dress she had forgotten. He already knew who she was.

The bride who ran away from her own wedding straight into his boss’s arms. It was quite funny to think of the fact that his boss had actually wanted her even before she thought of escaping her own wedding and what were the odds of falling into the arms of a man who had entertained the thought of stealing her in the first place?

Kaleb suddenly felt quite excited to witness what would happen next, his boss clearly had something for this woman which he didn’t have for others before, this would probably not be the end of them seeing each other. Though his boss never saw a woman more than once, Kaleb was certain this one was different.

He suddenly recalled a bet he made with someone before about Tristan Grayson growing old alone, while that person had vehemently argued that he would find someone someday.

Whipping out his phone, Kaleb began to send a text.

[You won’t believe what happened last night, the president and I were at Crown hotels and it just so happened that two celebrities were getting married, boss was smitten by the bride and even said something about wanting to steal the bride to have a taste, I never thought that boss would actually steal the bride…]

Kaleb went on to type out the full story of what might have happened the previous night. Just when he was about to hit the send button, he got an incoming call.

“Hello?”

“I’ve been trying to reach Tristan but it’s not going through. Where is he, I need to talk to him right now.” A feminine voice sounded on the other line, and immediately he heard this voice, Kaleb’s expression changed.

The woman was Erica Williams, the woman his boss had…

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