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Chapter 131: Empty Nest Begins

Author: Mary Anthony
last update publish date: 2026-05-05 23:49:50

The house was quieter than it used to be.

Not quiet, not yet, not with Marcus still requiring the full presence of parenting and Emma and Jack oscillating between independence and the baseline need for home to be reliably there. But quieter in the specific way of a household whose density had changed, one person removed from the daily count in a way that redistributed the atmosphere of the place.

Leo had been gone for six weeks when Chloe first sat with the quietness directly, on a Sunday morni
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  • My Ex's Boss is My Baby's Father   Chapter 132: The Foundation

    Catherine had been the foundation's executive director for three years when she presented the annual report at the board meeting in January, and Chloe sat at the table and listened to her speak about the organisation with the authority of someone who owned its direction, and felt something that was entirely positive and required a moment to identify.She was no longer the most important person in the room.Not marginalised, not replaced, but correctly positioned: a founder and board member who provided strategic direction and whose vision had shaped everything, but who was not the operational centre. Catherine was the operational centre. She knew the programme details, the beneficiary numbers, the staff challenges, the partnership negotiations, all the daily substance of a growing organisation, with a fluency that came from full immersion.Chloe knew the big picture and trusted Catherine with the rest.This had taken longer to genuinely feel right than she had expected. The intellectu

  • My Ex's Boss is My Baby's Father   Chapter 131: Empty Nest Begins

    The house was quieter than it used to be.Not quiet, not yet, not with Marcus still requiring the full presence of parenting and Emma and Jack oscillating between independence and the baseline need for home to be reliably there. But quieter in the specific way of a household whose density had changed, one person removed from the daily count in a way that redistributed the atmosphere of the place.Leo had been gone for six weeks when Chloe first sat with the quietness directly, on a Sunday morning in October, standing in the doorway of his bedroom. Clara had kept it tidy in his absence, not changed, just maintained. His drafting table was clear. The fabric swatches were still pinned to the board above it. The streetwear samples that hadn't made it into his luggage hung on the rail in the corner.She stood there for a moment without going in.She was not sad exactly. She had a postcard from Leo pinned to the kitchen noticeboard, sent from Kyoto after his first week at the fabric manufac

  • My Ex's Boss is My Baby's Father   Chapter 130: Decisions

    The acceptances arrived across three weeks in March, each one producing a response in the household that Leo bore with increasing difficulty.Wharton arrived first. Lucien read the email over Leo's shoulder at the kitchen table and said nothing for a moment, then said, with the controlled enthusiasm of someone managing their reaction: "That's a significant programme." Which was Lucien for: I want this for you and I am trying not to say so too loudly.Parsons arrived four days later. Chloe was in the studio when Leo forwarded it to her and she called him immediately, and in her voice was the same controlled enthusiasm, the same careful management, which Leo recognised as identical in structure to Lucien's and different only in direction.The London College of Fashion arrived the week after. Blair sent a voice note when Leo mentioned it, twenty seconds of genuine excitement followed by a recommendation that he consider the Paris campus of a programme she had heard about from someone in

  • My Ex's Boss is My Baby's Father   Chapter 129: Marriage Evolution

    The moment Chloe identified afterward as the one that clarified things happened on a Thursday evening in February, when she and Lucien had dinner together for the first time in eleven days.Not the first time they had eaten at the same table. The family dinners had continued, loud and present, the full household gathered most evenings. But those were family dinners, managed rather than inhabited, each parent arriving from their respective days and navigating four children through the meal and the bedtime that followed, the conversation functional and the attention divided until the house was quiet and both of them were tired in ways that made a real conversation feel like one more demand at the end of an already demanding day.The Thursday dinner was supposed to be different: a restaurant, just the two of them, the kind of evening they had been meaning to plan for several months and had not managed to schedule until Clara had essentially scheduled it for them, appearing with Chloe's d

  • My Ex's Boss is My Baby's Father   Chapter 128: Riley's Departure

    Riley asked for a meeting on a Monday morning, which was unusual.In fifteen years of working together, they had not met in the formal sense of scheduled calendar appointments between the two of them. They talked constantly, in the studio and outside it, in the natural rhythm of a working relationship that had long since become something else as well. Riley did not schedule meetings with Chloe. She appeared at her desk or called her mobile or sent a message that said can we talk and they talked.The calendar invitation, sent through the studio's official scheduling system, subject line reading Meeting - Riley Chen, was different enough that Chloe sat with it for a moment when it appeared.She confirmed it and said nothing, the way she had learned to give people the space to say what they were preparing to say without anticipating it in a way that changed what they said.Riley came in on Monday morning with the composed steadiness of someone who had made a decision and was not uncertai

  • My Ex's Boss is My Baby's Father   Chapter 127: Documentary Impact

    Sarah's letter arrived on a Wednesday, two years and three months after the documentary's release.By this point the volume of correspondence had settled into a steady rhythm, manageable in a way the initial flood had not been: thirty or forty letters and messages a week, routed through the foundation's administrative team, sorted by the coordinator who had been hired specifically to manage the response to the documentary and Chloe's expanded public profile. Most were read and acknowledged collectively through the foundation's communications. A smaller number were flagged for Chloe's personal attention, based on criteria she and the coordinator had worked out together: letters where the situation was specific and urgent, where a personal response might make a material difference, where the person had asked for something concrete that the foundation could potentially provide.Sarah's letter was flagged.Chloe read it on a Thursday morning, at her desk in the London studio, in the hour

  • My Ex's Boss is My Baby's Father   Chapter 32

    The applause still echoed in my ears as I stood backstage, trying to process what had just happened. Models were changing out of the garments, chattering excitedly. Hair and makeup artists were packing up. The controlled chaos of post-show breakdown had begun.But I couldn't move. Couldn't fully be

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-23
  • My Ex's Boss is My Baby's Father   Chapter 34

    The morning after the gala, I woke to 247 unread emails.Orders from boutiques wanting to stock the collection. Interview requests from fashion publications. Collaboration proposals from textile manufacturers. Meeting requests from other designers. Messages from industry insiders congratulating me

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-23
  • My Ex's Boss is My Baby's Father   Chapter 29

    The night before Fashion Week, Cross Luxury Group hosted a gala for designers, models, press, and industry insiders. It was tradition, a final celebration before the chaos of show days began.I didn't want to go. I wanted to be in my studio, obsessively checking every detail one more time. But Luci

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-22
  • My Ex's Boss is My Baby's Father   Chapter 30

    I couldn't sleep.It was two in the morning, less than twelve hours until my show, and I was staring at Tessy's ceiling counting all the ways tomorrow could go wrong.The models could trip. The garments could tear. Critics could hate everything. The audience could walk out. I could freeze backstage

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-22
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