The Stranger I Married-Chapter 64: Come home

The moment the elevator doors closed behind her, Clara’s composure cracked like fine porcelain struck by a hammer.

Her breath hitched painfully in her throat, shoulders trembling, fingers white-knuckled around her designer handbag. The weight of the rejection, the whispers, the disgust in Adrian’s voice—it pressed down on her chest like a slab of marble, suffocating and immovable.

He threw her away.

Everything she’d worked for—the dinners, the carefully curated image, the long hours pretending she cared about his boring hedge fund plans—it was supposed to be worth something.

But now? She wasn’t a fiancée.

She was a headline.

The second she stepped out of the lobby into the bright glare of mid-morning sun, a few bystanders lifted their phones. Cameras clicked. A flash burned behind her eyelids. She barely registered it. Their muffled whispers drifted toward her like smoke curling around her throat:

"That’s her—Clara Marquez."

"She’s the one who slapped Ella at the gala."

"She looks like she’s been crying."

"Serves her right."

Her legs moved on instinct. One foot in front of the other. Click, click, click—like a metronome counting down to the collapse of everything she had ever built for herself.

A cab pulled up; she barely registered raising her hand, barely heard the driver asking for a destination.

"Just drive," she rasped.

As the city blurred past the window, Clara felt the tears start—hot and blinding, rushing up from deep in her chest where humiliation, rage, and betrayal twisted together like thorns strangling her ribs.

Her phone buzzed on her lap.

Dozens of notifications. Mentions. Messages. Tags. All of them like tiny cuts across already raw skin.

Then a call.

Her mother.

Clara stared at the screen for a long second, considering letting it go to voicemail. But the ache in her chest cracked her pride.

She answered.

"Mom," she whispered, her voice breaking.

"Clara." Vanessa’s voice was sharp but controlled. "Where are you?"

"I went to see Adrian," she choked. "I—I thought I could fix it, I thought—"

A pause on the other end. The hum of silence between mother and daughter filled with shame neither wanted to speak aloud.

"Let me guess," Vanessa finally said, voice bitter with acid. "He threw you to the wolves."

Clara squeezed her eyes shut. "He said I was dragging him down."

"Well," Vanessa bit out, "he’s a goddamn coward then."

Clara’s lips trembled. She looked out at the blurred streets, the bustling life of the city that suddenly felt too fast, too sharp, too cruel. "Everyone’s talking about me, Mom. They’re laughing. Like I’m some joke."

Another beat of silence.

Then Vanessa’s voice softened—not warm exactly, but purposeful, focused, sharp as a scalpel. "Come home, Clara."

"I can’t."

"Yes, you can," Vanessa cut in firmly. "You will. We’re not going to let some nobody and her billionaire boyfriend destroy us."

Tears spilled down Clara’s cheeks. "It’s already destroyed. You don’t see the things they’re saying. They think I deserved it. They’re saying I deserved it."

Vanessa’s breath hitched. And for the first time, Clara heard it—not just anger, not just calculation—but fear. Fear that their world was slipping through their perfectly manicured fingers.

"They don’t matter," Vanessa said finally, like a command she was forcing herself to believe. "They don’t matter, Clara. We’ve clawed our way out of worse before."

Clara let out a broken, bitter laugh. "Not like this."

There was another pause, then a shift in her mother’s tone—sharp, decisive. Scheming.

"You’re coming home," Vanessa repeated, like an order that could not be disobeyed. "I’ll call Enrique. He’ll drive you. We’ll get ahead of this. There are still friends we can leverage, stories we can leak. Sympathy we can buy."

Clara swallowed hard, the bitter taste of bile rising in her throat. "Mom—what if this can’t be fixed?"

Vanessa’s reply was ice, laced with venom. "Anything can be fixed, Clara. You should know that by now. They may hate you today, but the internet is fickle. They’ll turn on someone else soon enough."

Clara stared blankly ahead, watching the rows of people walking by—normal people. People who didn’t have to fight for their worth. People who didn’t have to scheme for love or for money.

Ella didn’t have to beg. She just existed, and Nicholas looked at her like she was worth the world.

Clara had played every trick in the book to be chosen.

And she was still the villain.

"What about Dad?" she whispered.

Vanessa’s voice hardened. "Forget him. He’s dead weight now. We’ll deal with him later."

Another sharp inhale.

"This is about us now."

For a flicker of a moment, Clara hated her. Hated the coldness, the constant scheming, the way every word out of her mother’s mouth sounded like a transaction, not comfort.

She didn’t want strategy.

She wanted to be held.

"I don’t know if I can do this anymore," Clara whispered, the words tasting like failure, like surrender. "I’m so tired."

Something shifted then. Not in Vanessa’s words, but in the space between them. A fracture. The first, faintest sign that Clara might not be the perfect porcelain doll anymore.

Vanessa didn’t offer comfort. She didn’t soften. But she lowered her voice to a chilling whisper.

"You’re not allowed to be tired. You’re allowed to win."

The words settled like a brand on Clara’s skin. No warmth. No comfort. Just the echo of cold steel in her mother’s voice.

"I need you to be sharp, Clara," Vanessa added. "You’ve always been sharp. You’re my daughter. We don’t break. We cut."

Clara wiped at her wet cheeks, her trembling subsiding into numbness, the kind of numbness that felt more dangerous than any outburst of rage.

"I’ll come home," she murmured.

"Good." Vanessa’s voice carried a smile that never touched her eyes. "We’re going to remind them who we are."

As the cab wound its way toward the Marquez estate, Clara didn’t know whether she was coming home to safety or to war.

But one thing was certain:

If Ella wanted a war—

Clara was finally ready to burn the world with her mother by her side.