Share

21

Author: Tamara Knox
last update publish date: 2026-03-04 16:35:51

*ARIANA*

Durrell standing in my office doorway at nine thirty at night felt like a complication I did not need.

“I didn’t schedule you,” I said.

“I know.”

He walks in after firmly closing the door behind him without asking, not aggressively but with quiet, deliberate intention.

I leaned back in my chair. “This better not be about Maxwell.”

“It’s not.”

“Good, because I’m tired.”

“You look it.”

I didn’t answer. My desk was buried in Blackbridge reports. Frozen accounts. Contract reversals. Legal
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Locked Chapter

Latest chapter

  • After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back   213

    SELENETwo days later, I'm sitting in Eleanor's study, and she's simply watching me, saying nothing, the silence stretching long enough that I'm about to fill it myself when the door opens.Ariana walks in, and stops the moment she sees me sitting there.She straightens slowly. "Selene.""Ariana."Eleanor watches us both with the particular patience of someone who arranged this exact collision and is now enjoying the results. "Selene is married," she says simply, to Ariana.Ariana's eyebrows shoot up. "Married." A short laugh, disbelieving. "Selene, married? Who on earth agreed to marry you?"Eleanor's mouth twitches, catching the joke, though she says nothing, her gaze sliding to me instead, a clear invitation for me to answer this myself.I stand, letting the ring catch the light. "Victor."Ariana blinks. "Victor who?""Victor Cox."For a moment nothing registers on her face at all, and then her eyes go wide, genuinely wide, her mouth actually falling open slightly.Of all the react

  • After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back   212

    SELENEIt's been two weeks since I've been back from Susan's, two weeks of never getting enough of the other Victor, and something about me finally feels like it's settled.I noticed it gradually. The night sweats stopped first, then the restlessness underneath my skin, then, eventually, the strange, insistent pull toward Victor that had made absolutely no sense given everything unresolved between us at the time. I've decided it was simply my body catching up to something my head hadn't fully admitted yet, that I wanted him, and once I'd finally acted on it, whatever pressure had been building just quietly released and left. It makes sense, in its own way. I've never been a woman who does well denying herself something she wants. Apparently my body agrees.Victor and I sat down together properly last week, both of us finally calm enough to actually discuss the agreement instead of arguing around it. I brought my own clause, the one I'd worked out at Susan's place weeks ago. If the

  • After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back   211

    MASON"What?" I ask, amused."Nothing." She looks resolutely ahead, though a small smile gives her away completely."You've been doing that all night.""Doing what?""Looking at me like you're trying to solve something."She laughs, caught. "Maybe I am.""Any progress?""Not yet." She glances at me again, briefly, before looking back out at the water. "I'll let you know when I figure it out."I don't push it further. I just let the moment sit there between us, warmer than the night has any right to be.By the time we get back to the estate, the house is quiet, most of the staff already down for the night. I walk her to the door and find myself reluctant to actually say goodnight."Stay for a nightcap," I say, before I've fully decided to say it.She glances at me, surprised. "You have a room here?""Eleanor likes me."She laughs. "So that's how you always manage to show up early to pick me up. Mystery solved.""My secret's out." I gesture toward the east wing. "Come on. I'll show you

  • After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back   210

    MASONI'm barely out of the car when the front door bursts open, and two small figures come tearing across the gravel in matching pajamas, shrieking with the particular joy of children who've successfully evaded bedtime."Mama! Mama, read to us!"Ariana catches Thea mid-launch, laughing, hoisting her onto one hip while Ethan wraps himself around her leg like a barnacle. "How did you two get out here?""Ran fast," Ethan says, delighted with himself.Mrs. Patricia appears a beat later, out of breath, hands on her hips. "They outran me. Both of them. I turned my back for one second.""One second," Ariana repeats, arching an eyebrow at her son, who grins without a trace of remorse.Eleanor comes out onto the porch behind all of them, unhurried, taking in the scene with the composure she brings to everything. "And where are you two off to tonight?""Out," Ariana says, breezy, though I catch the small glint in her eyes she doesn't quite manage to hide, the same one that's been showing up mo

  • After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back   209

    SELENESoon after, Victor's message comes through, and I read it three times before I decide how to answer.‘We need to talk. If we're voiding this, we should do it together, properly, and discuss what comes next. My suite, this evening, whenever suits you.’I tell myself I'm going because it's the responsible thing to do. After all, whatever happens to that agreement should happen with both of us in the room. I don't examine too closely why my hands are unsteady packing my bag, or why I bring Daniel's flask with me, already half empty by the time I leave, sipping it in the car because it's the only thing keeping the restless heat under my skin from becoming unbearable.By evening I'm standing in Victor's suite, the flask tucked against my side, listening to him lay out exactly what his lawyer confirmed. The document is genuine, and the signature too. But there’s no clean answer for how either of those things came to exist without my knowledge.I hear maybe half of it.The rest of my

  • After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back   208

    SELENEI've been at Susan's for two days now, and something's wrong with my sleep. And it’s not the ordinary kind of wrong. I wake up at odd hours drenched, the sheets damp beneath me, my body running hot enough that I have to throw the covers off entirely before I can breathe properly again. I open the window most nights, let the cold air in, sleep without anything on, and it helps enough that I convince myself it's just the weather, an unusually warm week, nothing more complicated than that.What I can't explain away as easily is what I dream about.Victor. Not the anger, not the accusation still sitting unresolved between us, but the other night, the wedding night I still don't fully understand the truth of, his hands, his mouth, the way he said my name like it belonged to him completely. I wake from those dreams furious with myself, my whole body aching for something I have no business wanting from a man I currently can't even look at without a knot forming in my chest.It does

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status