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The Day He Walked Away
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2026-05-12 16:37:49Nora saw him before he saw her.
Ethan Blackwood. Her ex-husband. The man who had handed her divorce papers three years ago without a single explanation and walked out of her life like she never mattered. He was standing at the head of the office in a charcoal grey suit, phone pressed to his ear, looking every bit like the powerful billionaire the world knew him to be. Then his gaze lifted. And he was staring straight at her. Nora's legs stopped moving. Her heart stopped with them. For one terrible second, the entire world shrank down to just this moment, just this floor, just the two of them, and three years of silence standing between them like a wall of glass. This was her new job. Her fresh start. The position she had worked fourteen months to earn. And Ethan Blackwood was her boss. She almost laughed. If it didn't hurt so much, she actually would have. The receptionist was still talking beside her, but Nora heard nothing. Her eyes stayed locked on Ethan, and he stayed on her. His expression gave nothing away. Cold. Controlled. Unreadable. The face of a man who had never once lost sleep over anything he had done. She lifted her chin and looked away first. That was the only power she had right now, and she was going to use every ounce of it. --- She made it four hours. Four hours of meeting colleagues. Four hours of sitting through briefings and nodding at information she barely absorbed. Four hours of pretending her heart wasn't pounding every time footsteps echoed behind her. Four hours of being the composed, professional woman she had spent three years building herself into. Her new colleague, Marcus Cole, made it easier. Warm, straightforward, the kind of person who laughed easily and made you feel welcome without trying too hard. He remembered she took her coffee black after she mentioned it once. "You'll like it here," he told her cheerfully. "Mr. Blackwood is demanding, but he's fair. Once you get used to how he operates, you'll be fine." Nora smiled. "I'm sure I will." She had already spent two years getting used to how Ethan Blackwood operated. She knew exactly what he was. --- At half past six, when most of the office had gone home, her desk phone rang. She stared at it. Internal call. She already knew who it was before she picked up. "Come to my office." His voice. Direct. No greeting. Like three years hadn't passed. Like he still had the right to summon her anywhere. "Everyone has gone home," she said. "I know. Come anyway." "Give me one reason I should." Silence. Then, quieter: "Because if we don't talk now, we'll spend the next several months pretending in front of everyone. And I think we're both tired of pretending." Nora hated that he was right. She hated even more that she was already standing up. --- His office was exactly what she expected. Large. Expensive. Cold. No personal touches anywhere. Floor-to-ceiling windows with the whole city glittering below like scattered diamonds. He was standing with his back to her when she walked in. She didn't speak. She used to fill his silences. She didn't do that anymore. He turned around. And for the first time, without other people around them, she saw something in his face that hadn't been there before. Something heavy. Something that looked almost like guilt. She didn't let herself care about it. "What do you want, Ethan?" "I want to explain what happened three years ago." "No." She said it simply, without anger. "That door closed a long time ago. I'm here to work. Nothing else. We keep things professional and stay out of each other's way. That's all I want from you." He took one step toward her. She didn't move back. "Nora." "Don't." Her voice dropped. "Don't say my name like that. You lost the right to say my name like that the night you handed me those papers and walked away." Something moved across his face. Pain, maybe. Or something close to it. Then the control came back. Smooth. Practiced. The mask he wore so well. "Fine," he said. "We keep it professional." "Good." She turned and walked to the door. "Nora." His voice stopped her. "I'm glad you're doing well." She stood with her back to him and said nothing for a moment. She thought about the hospital. The cold room. The phone that never rang. She thought about a little boy at home right now who had his father's dark eyes, and had never once heard his father's voice. "Are you." She walked out before he could respond. --- In the elevator going down, she leaned against the wall and focused on breathing. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking. Her chest felt like it was caving in. Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. She answered. A woman's voice came through. Smooth. Elegant. Familiar in a way that made Nora's stomach drop. "Hello, Nora. This is Diana Blackwood." The elevator doors opened to the lobby. "We need to talk. Before my son gets any ideas about playing father. Because we both know that cannot happen." Nora couldn't move. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you? The child. The one you've been hiding from him." The line went dead. Nora stood frozen in the middle of the lobby, phone still pressed to her ear, heart hammering so loud she could barely think. She knows about Liam. She knows. And if Diana Blackwood knew, how long before Ethan found out too?
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