One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 138: Chapter 138

The storm inside the house had gone quiet.
Not vanished—but sleeping.
After the letter, after the long silence between her and Damien, after the hug he gave her that was more apology than comfort—Arielle knew they needed something more than just words.
They needed a tether.
And not just for them.
For the whole family.
So she bought a blank leather-bound journal. Hand-stitched, cream pages, no lines. It had weight to it—not just in form, but in possibility. And that night, with soft music playing and the fire crackling in the hearth, she placed it in the center of the living room coffee table.
Damien raised an eyebrow. “What’s this?”
“A vow book,” she said simply.
He blinked.
“For our family,” she explained, settling beside him with the baby in her arms. “We’ve made so many promises, so many quiet hopes. But they fade. They get buried under dishes and deadlines and diapers. I want us to write them down. Remember them. Build something with our words.”
He nodded, visibly moved. “I love that.”
She handed him the pen first.
Damien hesitated, then wrote:
I vow to protect the light in this house, even when my own feels dim.
He passed it to her. She swallowed, heart full, and wrote:
I vow to listen more than I speak, to choose softness when anger tempts me.
Later, they invited the kids to add their own entries.
Their eldest, still in his school uniform and full of macaroni and opinions, grabbed a crayon and scribbled a crooked heart.
“I vow to share my cookies with baby Lily, even when she drools on them.”
Their middle daughter, shy and deliberate, drew a giant sun and underneath, in looping letters:
“I vow to make Mama laugh when she’s sad.”
Damien took a photo of her handwriting, reverently, like it was sacred.
Their toddler made squiggles that looked like snakes and screamed, “MY TURN!” while banging the pen against the page.
Arielle wrote beneath it:
“I vow to let your joy interrupt everything.”
As the baby cooed in her rocker, Damien reached for the pen again.
“I vow to love your mother in front of you—and behind closed doors. I vow to show you what love looks like when it’s bruised, and when it blooms.”
The room grew still. Reverent.
Arielle stared at the pages—so full of color, chaos, truth.
And hope.
That night, after the kids were asleep and the house returned to its quiet hum, Damien traced his finger over the sun their daughter had drawn.
“I needed this,” he said softly.
“I did too.”
He glanced at her. “Even after the letter?”
She didn’t answer for a long time.
Then: “Especially after the letter.”
Damien nodded, his eyes shadowed.
“Whatever this is,” she said, “we face it together. But we don’t let it take up all the space. This—” she gestured to the book, to the warmth between them, “—this matters more.”
He kissed her shoulder.
“We should keep it out,” she added. “In the open. So whenever something hard happens, we come back to this. We add to it. We remind ourselves what we’re building.”
Damien wrapped his arms around her, his voice low.
“And what we won’t let break.”
Outside, the wind picked up.
But inside the house, the fire burned on.
And the vow book lay open on the table, catching the glow.
Not just a journal.
A living promise.