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CHAPTER ONE: THE DIVORCE HE WANTED
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2026-06-24 19:35:29"Sign the papers, Elena."
The words didn't register immediately. I blinked once then twice. My smile slowly disappeared.
"What?"
Adrian pushed a document toward me. His face was cold, calm like he wasn't about to destroy my entire world. My fingers tightened around my phone.
Just a few hours ago, I had left the hospital with the happiest news of my life. I was pregnant. I had spent the whole day imagining this moment. I imagined Adrian smiling, imagined him pulling me into his arms, imagining us finally becoming a real family. Instead, divorce papers sat between us. My chest tightened painfully.
"What is this?"
"Read it."
"No."
His eyes lifted.
"No?"
My voice shook.
"I asked what this is."
His expression remained unchanged.
"It means our marriage is over."
The room seemed to spin. I stared at him, waiting, hoping, praying he would tell me this was some cruel joke. He didn't.
A laugh escaped me. Broken, disbelieving.
"You can't be serious."
"I'm serious."
My heart slammed against my ribs.
"Why?"
Without speaking, Adrian tossed a brown file onto the table. Confused, i opened it. The moment i saw the contents, my stomach dropped. Confidential company documents, emails, security records. Everything linked to my laptop. I looked up immediately.
"This isn't real."
"The files were leaked this morning."
"I didn't send anything."
"The evidence says otherwise."
Shock exploded into anger.
"So that's it?"
His jaw tightened slightly.
"What?"
"You already decided I'm guilty."
"I followed the facts."
"No."
I stood abruptly. The chair scraped loudly across the floor.
"You followed the easiest excuse."
Silence. Adrian looked away first. That hurt more than I expected. Three years together, three years married and he couldn't even look me in the eye.
"You really think I betrayed you?"
His voice stayed frustratingly calm.
"I think someone leaked confidential information."
"Someone?"
I laughed bitterly.
"You can't even say my name."
"Elena."
"No."
Pain burned inside my chest.
"Look at me and tell me you honestly believe I would destroy your company."
He remained silent. Tears gathered instantly.
"Tell me."
Nothing. Not one word. The silence shattered something inside me. I nodded slowly.
"That's what I thought."
My throat tightened. For years I had defended him. When he forgot anniversaries, when he missed birthdays, when he buried himself in work, when people asked why my husband never seemed happy beside me. I defended him every single time because i loved him stupidly, completely and unconditionally.
"I would never hurt you."
My voice cracked. I hated that it did. For one second, something flickered in his eyes then it vanished.
"People change when money becomes involved."
The words felt like a slap. I stared at him.
"You actually believe that."
"You had access."
"So did hundreds of employees."
"You're avoiding the issue."
A broken laugh escaped me.
"No."
I shook my head.
"I finally understand."
His eyes narrowed.
"Understand what?"
"I was never important."
His expression hardened.
"That's not true."
"Then tell me you trust me."
Silence. Pain stabbed through me. I swallowed hard.
"Tell me."
Nothing.
"I spent years blaming myself."
"Elena."
"I thought I wasn't enough."
His jaw tightened.
"I thought maybe I talked too much."
I laughed through my tears.
"I thought maybe I wasn't beautiful enough."
"Stop."
"No."
Years of frustration spilled out.
"I thought if I loved you harder, you would finally choose me."
The room fell silent. My breathing became uneven.
"You know what's pathetic?"
Adrian said nothing.
"I actually believed things would get better."
Fresh tears rolled down my cheeks.
"I kept waiting for the day you'd look at me and see your wife."
His face remained unreadable. That hurt even more. Yesterday I was searching for baby names online, yesterday I was imagining a nursery, yesterday I believed my future was finally beginning. Today everything was ending. Adrian walked towards the window.
"I don't want public drama."
I stared at him in disbelief. D****e? That was his concern? Not our marriage, not our future, not me. Drama.
"Sign the papers and leave peacefully."
The words crushed me. Leave peacefully like I was a stranger, like I hadn't spent years building a life in this house, like he wasn't breaking me apart. The hospital flashed through my mind.
Congratulations, Mrs. Knight. You're pregnant. My chest ached. I was so happy. So excited, now I couldn't even tell him.
What was the point? The baby wouldn't change anything, not when Adrian already wanted me to go.
"I loved you."
The confession slipped out. His shoulder stiffened. I swallowed painfully..
"I loved you more than my pride."
Slowly, he turned around. I continued before courage disappeared.
"Every time you pulled away, I blamed myself."
"Elena."
"I kept wondering what was wrong with me."
His expression darkened.
"I kept wondering why another woman would always be enough while I wasn't."
Before he could respond, footsteps echoed through the hallway. My stomach immediately tightened. A woman appeared seconds later.
Vivian Cross.
The sight of her felt like another knife to the heart. She stopped after noticing me.
"Oh."
Her voice sounded awkward.
"I didn't realize"
"It's fine."
Adrian answered instantly. The humiliation hit me immediately. Not because she was there, because she wasn't surprised. Her eyes landed briefly on the divorce papers then she looked away. That tiny movement told me everything. She knew. My chest hurts.
"How long?"
Adrian frowned.
"What?"
I looked directly at Vivian then back at him.
"How long has this been going on?"
Vivian shifted uncomfortably. Adrian's face hardened.
"You're being irrational."
I laughed bitterly. Of course. The wife was irrational. Not the husband ending a marriage, not the woman standing inside my home. Me
I suddenly felt exhausted. Completely exhausted. Fighting for someone who never fought for me, waiting for affection that never came, holding onto hope that never existed, maybe I was done, maybe I should have been done long ago. Slowly, I reached for the pen.
My hand trembled. I waited, I waited for him to stop me. To say something, anything. He didn't, neither did Vivian. That hurt more than anything else. I signed.
The moment my name touched the paper, something inside me broke. Three years ended with a signature. I placed the pen down. Nobody moved, nobody apologized, nobody cared. I grabbed my phone and turned towards the stairs. If I stayed another second, I would completely fall apart.
"Elena."
I stopped. Hope rushed through me before I could stop it. Maybe he changed his mind, maybe he finally realized what he was losing. Slowly I turned around. Adrian met my gaze. His face remained cold then he delivered the final blow.
"You should know this before you leave."
My heart pounded violently. Vivian lowered her eyes. A terrible feeling settled inside me then Adrian spoke.
"Vivian is pregnant with my child."
The world stopped. My fingers tightened around my pulse. Inside was the hospital report I had carried all day. The report proved I was pregnant too. And in that moment, I realized something heartbreaking. The man celebrating another woman's baby had no idea his own child was growing inside me and suddenly, I never wanted him to find out.
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CHASING THE WIFE HE FORCED TO DIVORCE CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND ONE: WHAT SHE WANTED
I spent Saturday doing nothing that looked like deciding.I walked with my mother along the river path and let her tell me about the first flat she and my father ever shared, the one with a broken kettle and a window that never closed, and I laughed in the right places and understood that she was giving me the one thing she had never been able to give, an ordinary afternoon.Then I sat on my own and made a list.Not of Adrian's faults, I knew those by heart, I wrote down what I wanted my life to look like if nobody else were in it, and the surprise was how quickly the page filled.A home with a door I chose.Work that was mine, and I already knew what, the Vale name could be rebuilt as a foundation for families who had lost everything to people like Richard, and I wanted to build it slowly and honestly.My mother and Marcus close, not as guardians but as family.A child who grew up knowing every true thing about where she came from.I stopped and looked at that last line.I had writte
CHASING THE WIFE HE FORCED TO DIVORCE CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED: WHAT HE OWED HER
I chose the building with the east facing window.It was the only place that had belonged to both of us before anyone else touched it, the building where my father had arranged a first meeting neither of us was allowed to remember, and when I unlocked the door and stepped into the small room where the ring box had been waiting, the morning light was already lying across the floor exactly as it had that dawn, patient, as though it had never gone anywhere.Adrian was already there.He stood by the wall furthest from the window, hands loose at his sides, and he hadn't moved toward me when I came in, which I noticed, and which I was glad of."You came early.""I didn't want you to arrive to an empty room.""That's thoughtful.""I'm trying to be."I sat on the old wooden chair by the window and left him standing, and I let the silence stretch, because I had spent three years being the one who rushed to fill silences and I was finished with it."I'm going to say things," I told him."Yes."
CHASING THE WIFE HE FORCED TO DIVORCE CHAPTER NINETY NINE: IN HIS OWN WORDS
The courtroom was fuller on Friday than it had ever been.I felt it the moment the doors opened, the press benches packed shoulder to shoulder, the gallery standing along the back wall, and beneath all that noise a strange hush, the kind that settles when a room understands it is about to witness an ending.Clara walked ahead of me.My mother came behind, one hand resting lightly against my back, and Marcus and Daniel followed, and Sophia slipped in last and took the seat at the end of our row without a word, and I let her, because some things didn't need to be settled in order to be allowed.Adrian sat one row behind us.He had asked the night before where I wanted him, and I had said, close enough to hear, far enough that it's my choice who I look at, and he had nodded as if I had given him something rather than limited him.Richard stood when the judge entered.He wore a plain grey suit that hung a little loose, and he kept his eyes forward, and when Judge Chen asked whether he und
CHASING THE WIFE HE FORCED TO DIVORCE CHAPTER NINETY EIGHT: WHAT HE LEFT
My mother was sitting on the floor.I noticed that before anything else, that she had lowered herself onto the carpet beside the coffee table with her back against the sofa, like a girl, and that the box in front of her was smaller than I had imagined, plain dark wood with a brass clasp gone green at the edges.Marcus stood by the window with his arms folded.He had clearly been standing there for a while, because the stillness in his shoulders was the kind that takes effort to keep, and when I came in he looked at me and then at our mother and gave me a small nod that said, she hasn't touched it."I waited."Her voice was thin."I wanted you here, both of you, I didn't want to be the only one who heard him."I sat down beside her on the floor.Adrian had stopped in the doorway, and I turned and found him watching me with that careful uncertainty, asking without asking, and I thought about it for exactly one breath."Stay," I said."Are you sure.""It's your father's fault it was hidd
CHASING THE WIFE HE FORCED TO DIVORCE CHAPTER NINETY SEVEN: ONE THING LEFT
I decided at four in the morning.Not because anyone persuaded me, because I lay awake in the apartment with my hand on my stomach and the baby turning slowly beneath it, and I realised I was not afraid of what Richard Ashford wanted to say, I was afraid of spending the rest of my life wondering.I told Clara at seven.She didn't argue, she only put her pen down and said, "Then we do it properly," and by nine the terms were set, a consultation room at the remand facility, a glass partition, two officers inside the door, her own office informed, every word recorded with Richard's lawyer's written consent."You can leave the moment you want to.""I know.""Say the word and the officers end it.""Clara, I know."She almost smiled.Adrian drove me.He had asked that morning, quietly, whether I wanted him to, and I had said yes before I could examine why, and he hadn't made anything of it, he had simply picked up the keys.We sat in the car outside the facility for a minute with the engine
CHASING THE WIFE HE FORCED TO DIVORCE CHAPTER NINETY SIX: ONE SILENCE
"Explain it."My voice came out steadier than I felt, and I kept my eyes on Victor Knight's face and my hand flat on my father's letter, as if the page might slide away if I let go."Explain how a silence becomes the rest of it."Victor opened his eyes."He asked me for one small thing, and I knew, the moment I read it, that I would keep it, because keeping it was easy, it cost me nothing, and it let me feel loyal to a man I was about to fail.""That isn't an explanation.""No, it's the beginning of one."He folded his hands on the table, and I noticed they were shaking slightly, an old man's tremor, and he made no effort to hide it."Your father left something with me that night, a box, recordings of his voice, letters for you, a photograph of your mother laughing, things meant for a daughter who was too young to hear them, and he asked me to hold them until you were strong enough.""You had them.""For twenty years.""And you didn't give them to me.""I told myself you weren't ready
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