Joyce’s composure shattered. Her eyes, usually so calculating, blazed with a raw, ugly emotion. 

“Muse?” she shrieked, stepping towards Cheryl, her hands clenching into fists. “He doesn’t need a muse! He needs me! We were ‘The Cosmic Weavers’! We built an empire together! You think your little bespoke scents can compare to the vision we shared? You think you can just waltz in and take what’s mine?” 

She turned to Louis, her voice cracking with a desperate plea. “Louis, tell her! Tell her what we had! Tell her how she’s nothing compared to our legacy! You can’t let her destroy everything we worked for!”

Louis finally spoke, his voice low and strained, cutting through Joyce’s tirade like a sharp blade. “What we had, Joyce, was a lie. A beautiful, devastating lie.” 

His gaze was fixed on her, no longer clouded by past affection or lingering doubt, but filled with a profound, heartbreaking clarity. “You didn’t just claim credit for ‘Cosmic Symphony.’ You claimed me. You made me believe I was nothing without you, that my art was only valid through your lens. You isolated me, you gaslighted me, and when I finally tried to break free, you tried to erase me.” 

He took a step towards Cheryl, placing himself subtly between her and Joyce. “And now you’ve tried to do the same to Cheryl. You’ve tried to destroy her, just like you tried to destroy me.”

Joyce stared at him, her mouth agape, her face contorted in a mixture of shock and rage. “Destroy you? I saved you, Louis! You were lost, you were directionless! I gave you structure, I gave you purpose! And her,” she spat, gesturing wildly at Cheryl, “she’s a distraction! A pretty little distraction with a fleeting scent! She’ll never understand your depth, your vision, the way I do! She’ll never push you, challenge you, make you truly great again!”

“She sees me, Joyce,” Louis said, his voice firm, his eyes locking with Cheryl’s. “She sees me in a way you never did. She sees the darkness, yes, but she also sees the light, the potential, the truth.” 

He turned back to Joyce, his expression hardening. “You didn’t want to reclaim my art, Joyce. You wanted to reclaim your control over me. You wanted to punish me for daring to find my own path, for daring to find someone who inspires me without manipulation or deceit.” 

His voice dropped to a whisper, filled with a raw pain. “You wanted to hurt Cheryl because she dared to connect with me, to heal parts of me you broke.”

The accusation hung heavy in the air. Joyce’s face crumpled, the last vestiges of her carefully constructed facade dissolving into a mask of bitter resentment. 

“You’ll regret this, Louis,” she hissed, her voice trembling with barely contained fury. “You’ll see. She’ll leave you, just like everyone else. And then you’ll come crawling back to me, because I’m the only one who truly understands you. I’m the only one who can make your art immortal.”