2. Change Of Plans

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“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Alexander muttered as he banged his head against the glass pane of his office window, looking out at the buzzing night view of New York. 

“You got played. What else is new?” Mathew rolled his eyes as he texted some random chick on Tinder. 

Alexander turned to glare at his old friend and business partner. “For a second, I actually thought that she would happily give me a divorce. But I was wrong. So damn wrong.” 

“Of course, you were wrong.” Mathew looked up. “Did you really think that she would easily let you go? Inaya is like those psycho villains in dramas - she might not want you, but she would be damned if she let her possession go.” 

“I am not a possession.” He grunted. “And I will make sure that I get this divorce at all costs.” 

“Good luck with that. I am pretty sure Parker McBell might have seen the trending proposal clip right now and believed that you finally want to go public with the marriage.” 

Alexander groaned. 

With Inaya’s crazy reaction, everyone had thought the most eligible billionaire was settling down with the woman he had been rumored to be seeing. 

This was not good. 

The internet was going crazy. The shareholders were sending their congratulations and best wishes. The freaking lobby was flooding with celebratory bouquets and companies pitching their ideas of how their products will help shape the best wedding. 

It was a disaster. 

“What do I even do?” He asked.

“Confront her!” Mathew declared as if it were easy. Alexander knew that it was either that or just suck it up. But he needed that divorce. 

He hated Inaya’s guts, and he could not live like this anymore. 

“Confront her.” He murmured. 

“Confront her!” Mathew pumped his fists in the air. 

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“Inaya, we need to t-” Alexander stopped in his tracks, taking in the scene before him. 

At least a dozen movers were in the mansion, walking around with boxes. 

“What’s going on?” He asked no one in particular. One of them was polite enough to stop and address him. 

“We are the movers.” He stated the obvious. 

“I can see that, but who hired you? Where is my wife?” Alexander asked. 

“Ms. McBell is in the bedroom.” Another one announced. 

Alexander wasted no more time as he took two stairs at a time to reach their bedroom wing. More boxes lay packed and littered in the hallway. 

“Inaya, what is going on?” He asked his wife who had her back to him. 

She turned around, her hair up in a loose bun, and her tee wrinkled. “Packing.” She said. 

“Packing?” He tested the word as if he were hearing it for the first time. “Why? Are we moving? Did you find some other place you liked?” Which made no sense because Inaya just was not the type of person to move things. The Inaya Thorne he knew would just keep the place and buy new things for the new place. 

Inaya raised a brow. “We are not moving. I am moving.” She said matter-of-factly.

“What are you talking about?” Alexander was dumbfounded for probably the tenth time in the last twenty-four hours. 

Inaya gestured for the two movers to leave them alone before turning back to him with her arms crossed over her chest. “What do you mean, Xander? We are getting a divorce, remember? Do you expect to live together after the divorce? That does not sound very plausible, you know.” 

Alexander gaped at her. 

She waited for a few seconds before she snapped her fingers in his face, “Earth to Xander.”

He shook his head to snap out of his reverie. “We are getting a divorce?” 

Inaya looked at him lamely. “Umm, recap to last night, when you proposed divorce?” She pulled out the pendant from under her shirt - Alexander was shocked. This was the first time she had ever worn something that he had gifted her in private. “Happily forever apart, ring a bell?” 

Alexander pursed his lips. “You mean that? You really want a divorce?” He asked. 

Inaya raised a brow, an infuriating smirk on her face. “What? Having second thoughts, Xander? Can’t imagine a life without me?” 

Alexander wanted to scoff. The only thing he had ever imagined in the last two years of their marriage was life after the divorce. The life where he would be able to breathe freely again. But he was not going to say it out loud. He was not going to hurt her pride. 

He did not want her to change her decision out of pure spite. 

“But… You know it is a mess, right?” He asked. “Have you seen the articles?” 

Inaya shrugged. “I fail to see how that is any of my business.” 

“Excuse me?” He was not surprised, though. He expected nothing more from someone like her. “You do realise this is happening because of what you did, right?”

Inaya snorted. “A lot of things happen because of a lot of people, Xander. But at the end of the day, you are responsible for everything that affects you. So no use blaming me. Your mess to fix. And it is my time to say goodbye.”

Alexander took a deep breath. She had to be a bitch till the end, didn’t she? 

But he was not going to let it happen. 

“Fine.” He gritted out. 

Inaya smiled - a soft, almost serene smile that he had never seen before on her. 

“Good for you. Good luck and goodbye.” She stepped around him and walked to the door. 

“We are not getting divorced.” 

Inaya’s hand paused just as she was about to turn the doorknob. She turned slowly at the same time Alexander did to face her. 

She raised a brow. “Excuse me?” 

“I said, we are not getting divorced.” 

Inaya’s right eye twitched. It struck her husband that the woman was fighting her temper, just the way he used to not piss her off. “And why is that?” It was she who was gritting her teeth now.

Alexander raised a brow. Well, well, well, what was this development? He had never thought that he would see this day. “Because your reaction to the end of our secret arrangement was so utterly ridiculous that the world thinks that we are getting married. And that has put me in the spotlight as the future son-in-law of Parker McBell. The stocks are skyrocketing, and new investors are jumping on the bandwagon. It is out of the world.” 

He walked slowly to their bed - the bed that was theirs in name and hers in deed. He sat down and gave her one of his predatory smiles, the one he gave when he locked in a deal and waited for the other party to agree, knowing that he had not left them any other choice but to agree with what he had to offer. “I think I should have done this sooner.” 

“Done what?” Her voice came out croaky. 

Alexander was intrigued. He had never seen this woman like this.

He was her conquest. And if she wanted, she could have walked away from this sham whenever she wanted, but she didn’t. He just believed that she liked to torment him, but the way she seemed like she was going to lose it - not to mention how happy she was about the separation yesterday - it really was starting to look like this woman wanted this marriage half as much as Alexander wanted it. 

And half of zero was still zero. 

“Alexander, you know Daddy will fix everything for you.” Inaya tried to sound confident. “He will make sure that you get whatever you want.” 

Alexander hopped off the bed and stalked over to her, leaning down to come face to face with his painfully beautiful wife. “Inaya, baby, I don’t think you understand. With the amount of investments that I will secure as the McBell son-in-law and the innovative ideas of Thorne Corp., I am on my way to becoming bigger, richer and more powerful than your Daddy.” 

Inaya stared at him for a few moments, her head subtracting seven down from a hundred to give her time to calm down. 

Not that it helped. Not that it ever helped. 

“What do you want, Alexander Thorne?” Her voice was different from her usual royal, golden spoon stuck up her ass, arrogant superfluous one. This one was deeper, richer, sexier. And her eyes did not hold any of her usual disregard - they were focused, they meant business. 

A divorce, he wanted to day. Everything else be damned, a divorce was all that he wanted from her. 

But those eyes, that voice, and the very unusual situation made him curious. And this curiosity might end up killing him but he was going to take the risk. 

So he shrugged, “I don’t know. Change of plans.” 

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