Chapter 57: Unwanted Board Member or Clingy Ex

Damon realized somewhere in the middle of all that that he had stopped listening as his brain had wandered off trying to process the fact that Psycho Bellamy had apparently broken into his room before, watched him sleep, gotten caught by his family, earned herself a restraining order, and somehow every single person in the house had decided Damon was better off sleeping peacefully through the fucking lore of it all.

’Funny if you ask me, well, not really.’

By the time his attention finally crawled back into the room, Celeste had already made herself comfortable in the chair in front of his MacBook.

She had one leg tucked slightly beneath the other, shoulders loose, fingers moving across the keyboard with the ease a sit he’d either invited her or she had decided invitations were a decorative concept. Damon stared at the back of her head for several seconds, still half trapped in his own thoughts, while soft little sounds kept drifting from her.

"Mhm."

A click.

"Oh."

Another click, then a quieter, much more interested, "Huh."

Damon’s eyes narrowed.

Celeste leaned slightly closer to the screen. "Okaaay."

Then came a soft, approving, "Oh, wow."

That one woke him the fuck up.

Damon crossed the room in two strides and snapped the laptop shut under her hands: "Stop looking through my shit."

Celeste looked up at him without even flinching. If anything, the interruption seemed to amuse her. Her eyes flicked over his face, then she smiled with the calm satisfaction of someone who had just finished reading the first half of a very stupid business proposal.

"You know, I have to admit, you’re taking all of this really well."

Damon stared at her.

"Well. As expected of Damon." She patted the closed MacBook almost affectionately with her expression shifted into something much more pitying. "But this is stupid."

That shut him up.

He didn’t even have a proper response ready because what the fuck was left to protect at this point? She had already seen everything; from his dick that had been hanging out less than ten minutes ago, and judging by how her eyes still drifted toward the tent his hastily fixed pants were doing a terrible job hiding, Celeste had no intention of forgetting that anytime soon.

Now she had seen the website too, enough of the backend to understand what he was building, and probably half the notes he had made while sitting through Winthrope’s ego marathon.

His whole Service Path had survived in secrecy for less than two fucking hours.

Damon hadn’t even launched it yet and Psycho Bellamy was already sitting beside it like an unwanted board member who had somehow acquired voting rights.

’I built a company. I got a hostile takeover before lunch. That has to be a record.’

"How the hell did you even get into my laptop anuyway?" He was pretty sure it had automatically locked.

Celeste rolled her eyes like the question disappointed her personally. "Did you learn absolutely nothing from what I just told you?"

"What does you breaking into my bedroom have to do with my password?" For beginners, she was a freaking genius, dear Sir. Damon, lol.

"Everything." She leaned back in the chair and folded her arms. "Okay, let me make this simple for you. First you used a combination of Lilith’s birthday and the date she legally adopted you as your password for your phone and laptop; quite lazy if you ask me. Then you changed it to that date plus your birthday. After that you had the one with her initials, which was terrible, by the way. And for the last few years you’ve mostly been using her birthday, yours, and Camilla’s age with yours difference in different combinations."

Damon’s face slowly went blank.

Celeste squinted up at him. "Why do you even like that woman so much?"

His expression changed just enough for her to catch it.

Her eyes slid toward the laptop, then down toward his pants, then back to his face. Understanding arrived almost instantly.

"Oh." Her mouth curled. "Well, stupid question. Yeah, actually, I can answer that myself now."

"Celeste."

"Seeing what you’re into, it makes perfect sense." She tapped one fingernail against the laptop lid. "And she’s too hot too and you’re into mature women. Sorry for asking the obvious. I knew about the mature-woman thing, obviously. I just didn’t know your obsession went beyond the porn searches and those OnlyFans women you keep paying."

Damon stared at her in horror: ’She knows the OnlyFans. She knows the passwords. She knows Camilla’s and my age difference as the combination. I am going to fake my death and become Greg.’

Celeste brightened. "Oh! Congratulations, by the way."

His eyes narrowed. "For what?"

"It’s been almost three days since you last visited any of your favorites OnlyFans actress pages."

Damon said nothing. What would more surprise help in here if she already knew this much.

She looked genuinely pleased for him. "Or called them up. Personal growth."

He slowly pointed at her. "You are fucking sick."

Celeste smiled.

"No, seriously." Damon laughed once because the alternative was probably throwing something or yelling and hey, he had to keep his cool here and he was in such utter disbelief too. "I applaud whatever genius-level shit you’ve got going on up there, because clearly there’s a lot of it. You remember everything, you figure shit out nobody told you, you apparently know my passwords better than I do, and you’re obviously obsessed with me, which, hey, flattering."

Her smile got noticeably brighter at obsessed with me part.

Damon regretted feeding that instantly.

’Stop giving her treats. She is not a dog. She is a home invasion with good grades.’

"But you’re sick," he continued. "So let me make this really simple for you, yeah? I am never going to have any kind of romantic interest in you."

"Obviously." Her reply came so easily that Damon paused.

Celeste pointed at the laptop. "Come on. You’ve rejected me twice."

Damon frowned. "What?"

"You just don’t remember."

His frown deepened.

She shrugged with insulting casualness. "That was way before I started stalking you properly anyway. You were actually meaner back then."

Damon stared at her.

Celeste thought about it for another second. "Maybe not meaner, you were just way too nonchalant and didn’t care about any of the girls who asked you out and befriended you sisters to get into your pants, well, not exactly your pants but same logic. But you’re harsher now, but we’ve already been there, done that."

"We have?"

"Twice."

"What the fuck do you mean twice?"

Celeste opened her mouth, but Damon immediately held up one hand: "No. Actually, whatever. I don’t even want to know anymore. Can you just go? I have a few things to finish here you see."

"Mhm. Sure."

She stood, and for one beautiful second Damon actually believed she was going to leave but Celeste took two steps toward the door, stopped, and glanced back at the MacBook. Damon saw the change immediately. That wandering, psychotic little smile disappeared for a moment, replaced by the look she’d had while scrolling through his site earlier.