One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 130: Chapter 130

It started with a drawer.
Arielle wasn’t looking for anything profound that morning—just her favorite fountain pen. The baby was down for a nap, the house unusually quiet, and she thought perhaps she’d try writing again. Nothing grand. Just a few lines. A whisper of poetry to reclaim the parts of her mind that hadn’t been overrun by bottles, burp cloths, and lingering fatigue.
She opened the drawer in Damien’s desk slowly, mindful of the soft creak it made. The smell of cedar and ink drifted up—familiar, comforting. Her fingers brushed past receipts, clipped charging cables, a broken watch, and then landed on a stack of cream-colored envelopes bound together by twine.
Her breath caught.
They weren’t labeled.
She hesitated, fingers tightening. Then she untied the twine.
The top envelope slid open with a faint sigh, the paper inside thick, textured, worn slightly at the edges. She unfolded the letter and began to read.
My Arielle,
It’s two in the morning, and I can’t sleep. You’re curled up beside me, your body a perfect map of love and strength and exhaustion. I want to reach for you, but you need rest. I want to tell you how terrified I am that I won’t be enough for the world you’re creating in your belly. But you need peace. So I write instead.
I’ve never loved anything more than I love you. Not the way you were, or the way you’re becoming—but every version of you all at once. I see your body changing, your mood shifting, your fears growing—but you keep showing up. You fight, even when you don’t call it that. You breathe through pain like it’s prayer.
You amaze me.
Arielle’s hand flew to her mouth.
She pulled out the next one.
Arielle,
Today you threw up into your purse at Target. I wanted to laugh, but I saw the tears in your eyes, the way you tried to smile even when your body was clearly betraying you. I’ve never wanted to protect someone more.
You apologized after, like you always do. And I wanted to shake you. Don’t apologize for being human. Don’t apologize for being vulnerable. You are growing life. I should be apologizing every day for not finding more ways to carry the load for you.
I love you more in your mess than I ever did in your perfection.
Letter after letter.
Some were poetic. Others messy and raw. Some rambled. Some wept. But each one bled with love so honest, so fragile, it took her breath away.
He had written through every milestone.
The day she fainted during a meeting.
The first time they heard the baby’s heartbeat.
The night he thought he might lose her in delivery.
Every fear. Every joy. Every whispered hope he hadn’t dared to speak aloud, Damien had written down—and never given her.
Hours passed. The sunlight shifted on the wall.
Arielle was still in the study, the stack of letters now opened, read, smoothed beside her like a paper timeline of love.
She didn’t notice Damien step into the doorway.
He saw her before she saw him—his wife, curled on his reading chair, tearstained, holding the final letter.
She looked up.
“You wrote all these,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you give them to me?”
He exhaled. “Because they weren’t for then. They were for after.”
“After?”
“After the storm. After the birth. After you’d made it through what I couldn’t help you with. They were… my way of holding you when I didn’t know how else to.”
She rose and walked to him, one letter still clutched in her hand.
“You’ve always held me,” she said, voice thick.
“Not the way you deserved.”
She touched his chest. “This? This was exactly what I deserved.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then cupped her face.
“I wanted you to know everything I couldn’t say out loud back then. That I saw you. Every inch of you. That I never once loved you less in your weakest moments. I loved you more. Because you were still standing.”
Her lips quivered. “Even when I felt like I was failing?”
“Especially then.”
They sat together on the floor, surrounded by paper hearts.
Damien read one aloud. His voice shook, but he kept reading. Arielle leaned her head against his shoulder. They read until the words blurred, until the ache in their chests became something sacred.
Arielle turned to him.
“I want to write back,” she whispered.
He smiled. “Then I’ll keep writing, too.”
And so they did.
Two people who had walked through fire, still choosing to speak in soft words, still building something lasting from ashes and breath.
In that room, love became a language again.
Not perfect.
But truer than ever.