Chapter 4: Wearing Her Ex-Stepfather's Shirt to Face Her Ex-Fiancé

Elena's POV

Dawn came too early, couldn't even tell when I fell asleep.

Only remembered Dante pulling me further into the bed and placing me over his chest.

Then I woke up to the sound of hard, repeated knocking on the penthouse door. For a second, I didn’t move, Dante’s shirt was the only thing covering me.

The fabric still held his scent while my body ached in places that had nothing to do with sleep. When I finally sat up, the sheet slipped down and I spotted the marks he had left on my collarbone and those on the upper curve of my thighs.

The knocking grew louder.

Then Dante stepped out of the bathroom without a shirt, with water still clinging to his skin. His eyes met mine, but he didn’t say a word to me.

He didn’t tell me to hide, he simply watched me as I stood up, pulled his shirt tighter around myself, and walked towards the door.

I opened it to Kevin standing there with Claire just behind him. His eyes went straight to the shirt, then to the visible marks on my neck.

For a moment, he looked like he had seen a ghost, then anger flooded in.

“You actually did it?” He asked in a low voice that kept shaking. “You let him—” He couldn’t finish the sentence as his gaze dropped to my bare legs and the way the shirt only just covered me.

"Filthy doesn't even begin to cover it," he added. His eyes dropped to the shirt again. "Take that off."

I looked down at the dark fabric hanging over my bare thighs.

"No," I said. "I think I'll keep it."

Claire's eyes moved past me into the room, I knew what she was seeing without turning around.

My wedding gown laid in a heap at the foot of the bed, then a belt on the floor, and the sheets still twisted from the night.

She still had on the necklace, the same one I had longed to rip from her neck a hundred times last night.

Kevin took a step forward. “It was a retaliation, that’s all this was. You wanted to hurt me, and you used him to do it.”

I didn't give him sign it was true.

“Admit that, and we can still fix this,” he continued. “I’ll forgive you and we can still go downstairs and pretend the wedding is happening.”

A laugh slipped out of my lips roughly.

“Forgive me?” I raised a brow.

Then Claire spoke up before he could answer. “Elena, you set this whole thing up. You wanted an excuse to destroy everything,” she muttered.

"I was manipulated. Kevin was manipulated," she said, pointing at him.

I stared at her. "You were naked in my bridal suite with my fiancé, wearing the necklace I bought you, and I'm the manipulator?"

Her mouth opened.

I didn't give her time to answer. "That's almost impressive."

A bone freezing cold washed over me and I reached out, wrapped my my fingers around the necklace at her throat and pulled it free.

The delicate chain snapped and I walked past both of them to the small trash bin near the console table and dropped the broken necklace inside.

Only then did I let myself look back towards the bed, spotting the white gown still on the floor, looking expensive and useless.

For a second, the pain cut through the anger again, not that any part of me wanted Kevin back, but because years of my life had ended in one night and the evidence of it was still lying on the floor.

Kevin reached for my arm, but he didn’t get the chance to touch me.

Dante’s voice came from behind me. “Your access to this floor has been revoked. If you put a hand on her, you will not like what happens next.”

Kevin’s face twisted, then he turned to Dante’s bare chest, then at the shirt I was wearing, then back at me.

“You’re really going to hide up here with him?” He asked in a lower voice. “You’re going to let the whole hotel talk while you play house chic with my stepfather?”

I met his eyes. “I’m not hiding.”

Then turned away from both of them and walked back into the bedroom. Behind me, I heard Kevin start to shout something, but the door was already closing in his face.

Dante had moved, I didn’t need to look to know he had locked them out of the private system.

I found my own clothes from the night before, the ones I had worn when I first came up here, and picked them up, taking them to the bathroom and changing into them with steady hands.

The shirt Dante had given me I left on the bed, and when I came back out, he was waiting near the door, still shirtless.

He didn’t try to stop me. He simply stepped close, took the top button of the shirt I had just put on, and fastened it himself.

His fingertip brushed deliberately over the darkest mark on my collarbone as he did it, the touch light, but pssessive.

Then Dante stepped back. “You don’t have to go down there yet,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” I answered. “I do.”

He nodded carefully and stepped aside, letting me out the door. Kevin and Claire had gone, so I made the heavy walk down the empty hallway to the elevators.

The elevator ride felt longer than it should have, and when the doors opened on the ground floor, the noise hit me at once.

Voices were everywhere, camera flying around, and the chaos of a story already spinning out of control.

Claire had moved fast past me as someone had already put out an edited footage of me walking into the top-floor elevator the night before, clear enough to suggest the bride had gone looking for someone else before the wedding.

The narrative was simple and ugly. The innocent fiancée betrayed, the best friend devastated. And the powerful stepfather taking advantage.

They had turned me into the villain before I even reached the lobby.

Reporters surged forward the moment they saw me, throwing questions around. I didn’t answer any of them, I walked straight through the crowd till I found a quiet enough corner near the side entrance, took out my phone, and uploaded the only thing I was willing to release.

The official hotel access logs.

The time showed the exact minute I had removed my engagement ring and left the bridal suite. They showed that I had already ended the engagement before I ever stepped into the elevator to the top floor.

I did not release the video I had taken of Kevin and Claire. That was the one piece of evidence neither of them could explain away, and I wasn't wasting it while they were still lying only to cameras.

If they carried that lie into a boardroom, a contract, or anything official, I would use it.

For now, I gave the public only the facts needed to prove one thing: I had ended the engagement before I went upstairs.

My phone started ringing less than two minutes later. I answered it on speaker without checking the name.

My father’s voice filled the small space, carrying enough for the nearest reporters to hear.

“Elena, you will be in the office by ten o’clock. You will stand in front of the board and call whatever happened last night a mistake,” he boomed. “If you refuse, you forfeit your position, the hotel project, and any remaining trust this family has in you.”

I didn't say anything, and after a few heavy breaths, he added,.”Claire is already prepared to step in. Do not test me on this.”

The line stayed open for a second longer, waiting for my answer.

I looked down at the marks still hidden under my collar, then at the crowd still watching me, and ended the call without saying a word.