Chapter 11: Daniel. You don't need to explain.
Alyia's POV
From that day forward, I threw myself into overtime work, day and night without rest. Even if I'm leaving, I owe this project a proper ending. This wasn't my achievement alone—it's the result of an entire department's work over the past year. I may be walking away, but I would never treat that lightly.
For several consecutive days, Daniel never appeared at the company.
Until this particular afternoon, when an urgent document landed on my desk—one that required the CEO Daniel's personal signature.
I frowned and pulled out my phone, preparing to call and ask his whereabouts. Before I could dial, the phone suddenly rang, Della's name flashing across the screen.
I pressed accept.
"Alyia."
Della's sweet, cheerful voice came through the receiver.
"Tonight is my welcome party. Have you arrived yet? Everyone's already here—including Daniel. He's been by my side the whole time, keeping me company."
"I understand," I replied evenly, then ended the call.
I slipped the documents requiring signature into my briefcase, grabbed my car keys, and headed straight for the elite club hosting the event.
I wasn't going to attend any welcome party. I only needed that signature to complete my final mission at Sterling Corporation.
Half an hour later, I arrived outside the VIP suite door.
The door stood slightly ajar, allowing me a clear view of the lavish, bustling scene inside—a world utterly incompatible with my own.
I raised my hand to push the door open when unrestrained conversation drifted out from within. My hand froze mid-air.
"If you ask me, Daniel, you should've kicked that Omega out ages ago." A beta family heir laughed loudly.
"If your father hadn't valued her PR skills back then and insisted she join the corporation, what right would she have to sit in the vice president's chair?"
"Exactly," another socialite chimed in, her tone dripping with contempt. "A powerless, penniless orphan, always putting on airs like some high-society elite. It's nauseating to watch."
"Daniel, this scandal is the perfect opportunity. Kick her out of the corporation and publicly announce your relationship with Della to the entire city. Give Della the status she deserves!"
They took turns degrading me, their laughter grating against my ears. In their eyes, I was nothing more than a lowly orphan who'd lucked into a corporate position—completely unaware that I was the one who'd made a blood covenant with Daniel before the Moon Goddess, his rightful Luna.
And Daniel, standing at the center of the crowd, merely swirled the wine in his glass with elegant detachment. From beginning to end, he never spoke a single word in my defense.
I stood in the corridor, listening quietly.
All those years of humility and forbearance turned to ash in that moment.
Daniel's POV
I sat in the center of the suite, surrounded by deafening music, expensive champagne, and the pungent mixture of competing pheromones. Everyone was laughing.
But I felt nothing but irritation.
An entire week.
Alyia had become a completely different person. She no longer waited for me to come home, no longer prepared my breakfast, no longer reminded me to take care of myself after meetings ended. Even the way she looked at me had grown strange.
Most absurd of all—she talked about divorce while simultaneously organizing handover documents.
She was genuinely preparing to leave.
This realization lodged in my chest like a thorn, denying me peace with each passing day.
"Daniel."
Della sat beside me, speaking softly.
"Alyia's been handling transition work lately." She paused, studying my expression. "Is she... really planning to leave you?"
My fingers tightened slightly.
Leave.
That word had appeared far too frequently lately. I remembered that night when she stood in the dim living room, using those eyes that once looked only at me to say with perfect calm:
"Daniel, let's get divorced."
No tears, no accusations, not even a hint of pleading. She truly seemed to be abandoning someone utterly insignificant.
"She won't," I said in a low voice.
But the words failed to convince even myself. Someone nearby laughed.
"Daniel, you don't actually believe that Omega has feelings for you, do you?"
The words barely convinced even himself. Somewhere nearby, someone laughed.
"Daniel, you sound awfully certain—what, do you actually think she's into you?"
"That woman has never had a shred of genuine feeling for you. What she's always been after is the Sterling platform and the power you handed her."
"Without you, without Sterling, she's nothing. Every step she's climbed, you built the staircase."
"Let's be honest—she rode your resources straight to the top, and now that she's got everything she needs, she's ready to cut and run."
The words came down sharp and relentless.
Once, I would have shut it down on the spot—cold-faced, no hesitation, not tolerating a single word against her. But this time, I said nothing.
Because for the past two years, I had asked myself the same poisonous questions more times than I could count—privately, obsessively, in the dark.
I had pulled away from her, tested her, stood her up for Della, manufactured rumors. All of it deliberate. All of it for one desperate gamble—to see if she would panic, if she would get jealous, if she would ask me to stay.
But she was always calm. Always composed. Always the one quietly cleaning up every mess I made.
I stared down at the liquor in my glass, a dry bitterness rising in my throat, and let out a low, self-mocking laugh.
"How could she possibly have feelings for me."
The suite went dead silent.
I tilted my head back and drained the glass in one swallow. The liquor burned all the way down, a raw and searing ache.
"I've always figured she stayed because she couldn't bring herself to give up everything Sterling gave her. Becoming a group vice president in two years isn't exactly an opportunity that falls into just anyone's lap."
Someone ventured carefully, "So now that she's pushing to leave—she's grown too big for her boots, and this is her way of showing you she doesn't need you anymore?"
A sharp pain cut through my chest. I forced every soft thing inside me back down until only the cold, rigid stubbornness remained.
"Probably. She has the status, the track record, the shares, the authority—she has all of it now. When you've got that kind of leverage, walking away stops being a threat and starts being a real option."
A smile pulled at the corner of my mouth—cold, and cutting.
"The moment she hands me her resignation, I'll let her walk."
My voice came out flat and hard, edged with something petulant and self-destructive.
"I want to see it for myself—stripped of Sterling's resources, without every door I opened for her—whether she can still leave with that same cool confidence, that same untouchable composure she's wearing right now."
The next second, the suite door swung open.
"Sir, the champagne you ordered—"
The voice cut off abruptly. In the dim light stood a familiar silhouette.
Gray suit, black heels, and that face I knew more intimately than any other.
Alyia.
The air froze instantly. My glass stopped halfway to my lips.
She looked at me—no anger, no tears, not even disappointment. Only calm.
That calm terrified me more than any accusation could.
My heart plummeted. She'd heard. She'd heard everything.
"Alyia..."
I stood almost instinctively, my chair scraping harshly as I knocked it aside.
"It's not what you think."
I moved toward her, for the first time finding myself at a loss for explanation.
"Just now I was only—"
"Drunk?"
She finished for me, her voice soft yet irrefutable.
I froze in place. She glanced down at the documents in her hand, then looked up.
"Daniel. You don't need to explain."
Her tone remained as level as if processing routine paperwork.
"Because you're right."
My pupils contracted slightly.
"I do possess everything Sterling has given me. So now, I'm returning it to you."
She opened the documents.
"Starting today, I relinquish all shares in Sterling Corporation. I withdraw from all project transitions and resign from the vice president position."
Every person in the suite fell silent.
I stared at her, stunned, realizing for the first time that she wasn't threatening me. She truly intended to leave.
"Alyia..."
My voice turned hoarse, but she didn't look at me. She merely raised her hand slowly.
The Moon Goddess's mark designating her as Luna materialized.
"Finally."
She met my eyes.
"In my capacity as Luna, I swear before the Moon Goddess to dissolve the mate bond between myself and you, Daniel Sterling."
