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Back at the Ashford’s estate
publish date:
2026-10-18 21:05:14
Latest chapter
The Accident Was No Mistake: My CEO Husband Wants Me Back Telling Miles
VALERIE I put my hand over my mouth and sat there.Gerald woke up at some point and climbed down off the paper cups and came over to jump onto the chair beside me, which he never did, and settled against my arm like a small warm sandbag. I didn't move. I had five minutes of crying planned for the end of the night, the way you plan a bath, and it came out of me quietly. Then it was over, and I wiped my face with the heel of my hand and looked back down at the report.I took screenshots of everything. The 8:41 line. The 8:47 line. The network column. Roman's long ladder of calls. I was past the point of being able to read it, but I did it, my hands steady for no reason, because the link would expire in two days and I'd learned the hard way what it was like to lose something and not have it back.As I scrolled for a last look, I noticed what wasn't there. I ran my eye down the whole of that night, looking for one more number, and found it empty. No call to Zoey. Nothing to her number at
The Accident Was No Mistake: My CEO Husband Wants Me Back The feedback
VALERIETen business days turned out to be fourteen.I had counted them, and when the tenth one came and went with nothing, I decided the records department probably didn't count whatever days it took off for dentist appointments. On the twelfth I called, got a very patient man named Gary, and was told the request was "in process," a phrase I'd now heard so many times it had stopped sounding like English.The email arrived on the fourteenth day, in the middle of the lunch rush, with a woman in front of me trying to decide between a scone and a different scone.I felt the phone buzz against my hip and knew. Don't ask me how. It was the way you know your name is about to be called in a waiting room. I finished the order, made change, wiped down the counter, and did not look. I did not look through the muffin delivery or the argument with the man who wanted his latte "hotter, but not too hot." I kept the phone in my apron pocket the whole afternoon like a coal I'd decided not to drop.It
The Accident Was No Mistake: My CEO Husband Wants Me Back Protecting her
ROMANI was about to leave.The café was dark. The chairs were stacked on the tables, the chalkboard menu wiped clean, the sign in the door turned to CLOSED, and I had been parked across the street long enough that the engine had gone cold and the windshield had started to fog at the edges. Forty minutes, give or take. I had rehearsed three openings and none of them survived contact with the empty street. I’d decided, finally, that coming here had been stupid, that she’d gone home, that I would start the car and drive away and pretend this had been a long way of thinking.I had been restless ever since Iris called.She’d rung a little after five. We’d been talking about the townhouse kitchen, a contractor, nothing. Then she’d said, in the same easy voice, “By the way, I stopped by your ex-wife’s café this afternoon. The croissants are extraordinary. I’ve invited her to the Founders’ Tasting.”I’d said nothing. I’d gripped the phone hard enough to hear the case creak.“Don’t be difficu
The Accident Was No Mistake: My CEO Husband Wants Me Back The decision
VALERIE“That’s a silly idea, don’t you think?”I said it with a spring roll halfway to my mouth, which probably undercut the point. Zoey, across the table, put down her chopsticks and looked at me like I’d just read her a recipe in another language.“Back up,” she said. “Iris Belmont walked into your café. The Iris Belmont. And offered you a job.”“A competition. For a job.”“Who walked in and ordered a lemon tart”“Two lemon tarts. And a cortado, and a croissant. She tipped a hundred dollars into the jar, one bill at a time, while looking me in the face.”We were in a tiny Vietnamese place a few blocks from the café. I had waited until the menus were gone and the first glass of wine had taken the edge off before I told her about Iris.“Okay, that’s villain behavior.” Zoey picked her chopsticks back up and pointed them at me. “I’m sorry, I need to process this properly. Start from the beginning and do not skip a single word.”So I told her. The apology and then the offer, the Founder
The Accident Was No Mistake: My CEO Husband Wants Me Back The offer
VALERIE “And I’d like you to come to our Founders’ Tasting.” Iris slid a hand into her bag. “It’s in two weeks, at the townhouse, before the doors open. We’re inviting eight bakeries. Some are very well known. Two have stars on the wall, if you care about that. Each one presents a tasting menu to a small panel of members and investors, and the winner becomes Belmont House’s official pastry partner, with a three-year contract.”I tried not to let my face do anything.Three years. A kitchen. A partner with real money and a name that opened doors in rooms I would never otherwise enter. After the Mercer Street increase, I’d run the numbers on my own business so many times I could do them in my sleep, and I knew exactly what a contract like that meant. It meant the café could breathe. It meant I could hire help, and not count the days until the lease reset. I’d spent months waiting for a stroke of luck, and here it was, sitting across from me in a camel coat.“Why me?” I asked. “You said
The Accident Was No Mistake: My CEO Husband Wants Me Back The unexpected customer
VALERIEIt had been two days since the carrier call, and I had gotten very good at flinching at my own email.Every time my phone buzzed on the counter, my stomach dropped before my brain caught up. A coupon from the flour supplier. A newsletter from a store I’d bought one scarf from. A text from Mrs. Bennett asking if I’d seen the new flyers. None of them was the secure link, and each one left me a little more tired than the last.Things with Miles were strained. Not fighting. Fighting would have been easier, because fighting at least gives you something to point at. He called every morning before his first meeting and every night when he finally got out, and he asked about the café and Gerald and whether I was eating, and he was, as always, the perfect boyfriend. That was the part I couldn’t stand. He was being so good, and I was being so careful.I’d always thought the hard part of keeping something from someone would be the lie itself. It turned out to be the pauses. The half-seco
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