All Chapters of Once a Fool, Now a Queen : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Once a Fool, Now a QueenAurora Sinclair’s POV⸻*The House of Cards Begins to Crumble*The world loves a scandal. But it loves a powerful man’s downfall even more.By morning, every major news outlet was running the same story—Damian Laurent’s empire was cracking at the seams.Fraud. Tax evasion. Illegal dealings with foreign investors.And for once, I wasn’t the one pulling the strings.I scrolled through my phone, absorbing the chaos: articles dissecting every financial misstep, speculations about insider betrayals, even old rumors resurfacing like corpses floating to the surface.I took a slow sip of my coffee, savoring the taste of his impending ruin.Across the room, Celeste sat perched on my couch, her laptop open, fingers flying over the keyboard. She barely glanced up as she spoke.“It wasn’t you.” A statement, not a question.I arched a brow. “I never claimed it was.”

Once a Fool, Now a QueenAurora Sinclair’s POV***Power is a delicate thing. It shifts, it slips, and sometimes, it turns against the very hands that once wielded it.I watch from across the dimly lit lounge as Vanessa leans in toward Damian, her manicured nails tracing a slow, deliberate line over the rim of her champagne flute. She’s not the type to beg—not yet. But I see the shift in her posture, the flicker of uncertainty in her sharp gaze. She knows.Damian is losing his grip.“Interesting, isn’t it?” Celeste murmurs beside me, her phone glowing with fresh intel. “She’s pushing him now, pressing where it hurts. He doesn’t even realize how fragile he is.”I glance at Celeste’s screen. A bank transaction, hidden under layers of offshore accounts. The recipient’s name makes my stomach twist.“Are you sure this is her?” I ask, my voice low. “Positive,” Celeste replies. “Vanessa has been moving money to so

Once a Fool, Now a QueenAurora Sinclair’s POV***The betrayal tastes like champagne—effervescent, intoxicating, with a sharp bite at the end.Vanessa stands at the podium, poised and ruthless. The cameras flash wildly, the press clinging to her every word as she peels back the layers of Damian Sinclair for the world to see.“Mr. Sinclair has carefully crafted an image of power, of financial brilliance,” she says, her voice smooth, controlled. “But beneath that façade? A man drowning in debts so severe they could sink every business he’s touched.”The room erupts. Gasps. Murmurs. Questions fired one after another.I watch from the shadows of my office, the press conference playing on the large screen. Celeste sits beside me, a knowing smirk playing on her lips.“She’s good,” Celeste murmurs, swirling her wine glass. “Vicious, but good.”I don’t respond. My fingers drum against the armrest of my chair as Vanessa

Once a Fool, Now a QueenAurora Sinclair’s POV****Damian’s Last Card*I knew it. Damian wouldn’t go down without dragging me through the mud first.The moment I saw Celeste’s text—Check the headlines. He made his move.—I knew exactly what was waiting for me. And yet, when I opened the article, a cold rage settled in my chest.“AURORA SINCLAIR: THE WOMAN WHO BUILT HER POWER ON LIES?”Beneath the headline was a carefully curated selection of my past—my relationships, my business dealings, every decision I had made that could be twisted into something sinister. There was a blurry photo of me at twenty-three, walking out of a man’s penthouse in the early morning light. Another of me at a gala, laughing with a powerful investor who later faced fraud allegations. A bank statement that implied I had been “paid off” for my silence in an old scandal.It was a web of half-truths, calculated to make me look like a manipulative soc

Once a Fool, Now a QueenAurora Sinclair’s POV****Ghosts That Never Rest*It was supposed to be a clean break. A fresh start.But ghosts didn’t care about fresh starts.I should have known the past would find me, should have known it would come wrapped in an all-too-familiar voice.“Aurora.”One word. My name.And suddenly, I was twenty-two again, reckless and in love with a man who had left scars I had never fully acknowledged.Liam Deveraux stood in front of me, his hands in his pockets, his mouth curved into the kind of smile that had once undone me.“Did you miss me?”I inhaled sharply, my body going rigid. “What the hell are you doing here?”Killian was beside me in an instant. He didn’t say a word, but the shift in the air was immediate, electric.Liam’s gaze flicked to him, assessing. Then, with the same arrogance I remembered too well, he smirked. “So this is