One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 16: Chapter 16

The memory didn’t return all at once.
It unfolded slowly—like smoke curling from the edge of a long-forgotten fire.
Damien had been searching for an old file in the legal archives when he came across the envelope. It wasn’t labeled. No seal. Just a crumpled, yellowing document shoved between the folds of contracts never signed.
He opened it on instinct.
And time ground to a halt.
Marriage Certificate.
Damien Alexander Kingston and Arielle Mira Summers.
Dated exactly seven years ago.
Las Vegas.
The city had sparkled that night.
It was supposed to be a blur—a single night of escape. He was there on business, she was escaping grief. Strangers at a hotel bar. The kind of cosmic coincidence no one believes until it’s too late to undo.
He remembered the dress—short, silver, clinging to her curves like it was made for temptation.
She’d smiled without meaning to, laughed like it hurt, and drank tequila like she needed to forget everything.
“I just want to feel something real,” she had whispered.
“So do I,” he’d answered.
And then…
The chapel. The neon sign that flickered. The laughter in their voices. The way she’d clutched his hand while the officiant mumbled vows between Elvis impersonations.
“Do you, Damien Alexander Kingston, take this woman—”
“I do.”
“Do you, Arielle Mira Summers—”
“I do.”
They’d kissed. It had tasted like tears and whiskey.
She wore a plastic ring he bought from a vending machine.
He signed the certificate in a scrawl barely legible.
And then she disappeared.
Arielle never thought he’d remember.
That night was her deepest secret.
After the ceremony, they’d stumbled into bed—heated, desperate, entangled. But when he’d fallen asleep, the reality had crashed in.
She was pregnant.
She hadn’t known then it was octuplets. Only that her body was already changing.
Her heart had cracked in the dark. She had stared at him—this impossibly beautiful man, full of ambition and walls—and realized she couldn’t stay.
He was too big. Too powerful. Too dangerous.
So she had left.
With no note. No explanation. No goodbye.
She’d gone home, changed her number, hid from the world. Told herself it hadn’t mattered.
But it had.
Damien sat in his office long after discovering the certificate, staring at it like it was a ghost.
They weren’t just connected by blood.
They were married.
Legally.
Still.
He never filed for annulment.
Neither had she.
Which meant…
She was still his wife.
He stood.
His voice, when he called her, was calm.
“Arielle. Come up.”
She entered, guarded.
The moment she saw the paper on his desk, color drained from her face.
“I found it,” he said simply.
“I didn’t think you’d remember.”
He laughed once, bitter. “Hard to forget when the law still considers us husband and wife.”
Arielle’s eyes filled. “I was scared.”
“I was drunk. You disappeared.”
“I thought it was just a mistake. A joke. A—”
“Don’t,” he snapped. “Don’t pretend it meant nothing. That night, it was real.”
She didn’t deny it.
“I didn’t leave because it wasn’t real,” she whispered. “I left because it was.”
He sat back.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
She smiled sadly. “You’re asking your wife?”
“Apparently.”
They both laughed.
But it was hollow.
And too full of truths to ignore.