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CHAPTER 141
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2025-05-20 22:01:42
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RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 141
I waited until Jeff fell asleep before I plugged the USB into my laptop.He hadn’t asked where I was going. He just pressed the drive into my hand and whispered, “Be careful.”He didn’t say why.The files loaded slowly, as if even the machine knew it was handling something corrosive. The folders were neatly labeled—some by dates, others by initials. Contracts, land permits, communications. At first, it looked like ordinary paperwork.Until it didn’t.I opened one PDF labeled “C.L. – 2016 (Wetlands Transfer)” and froze.It was a letter from a local official recommending a plot of protected land for “redevelopment.” Attached was a list of approved names—shell companies, fake bidders, dummy corporations—and at the bottom of that list:“Clearview Holdings (authorized rep: L. Alcott)”Lucinda.I blinked.No. It had to be someone else. A coincidence. But I opened another document, and there it was again.Clearview Holdings. A modest LLC that had, according to the file trail, purchased over
RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 140
Camille wasn’t just visiting.She was circling.It became clear the next morning when Lucinda found a note left by Camille in the kitchen—handwritten, neat cursive, on thick paper that smelled like peonies and expensive regret.“Jeff,I still believe you owe me a conversation—face to face, no masks.You know why I’m really here.– C.”He read it twice. Then he folded it and slid it into the pocket of his jeans like it burned his skin.I watched him from the doorway.“You planning to have that conversation?” I asked.He didn’t flinch. “I don’t think I have a choice.”“You always have a choice. You just don’t always make good ones.”He sighed. “I’m not hiding anything from you.”“That’s comforting,” I said. “Except you haven’t told me anything.”That afternoon, I found Camille exactly where I expected her—sitting beneath the old cedar tree near the stables, looking like she’d just stepped out of a perfume ad. She wore a breezy white dress and ankle boots way too clean to belong on a ran
RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 139
The next morning was gentle.I woke up not from noise or panic but from the warmth of sunlight sneaking through the curtains. For the first time in what felt like forever, I didn’t feel like I was bracing for a punch.There was a text from Jeff."If you're free later, I’ll be on the porch. No expectations. Just… coffee. – J"I didn’t reply.But I didn’t delete it either.I spent the morning in town, partly for errands, mostly for distance. I bought lemons for Lucinda because I remembered she liked to steep the peels with mint when it got too hot. I grabbed a new notepad, thinking maybe it was time to write something again—something that wasn’t for work or to explain myself to someone.By the time I returned to the property, it was just past three. The air was sticky with impending rain. I could feel it in my knees—the way my mother used to.I turned into the driveway and saw a sleek black car parked in front of the main house. Not Jeff’s truck. Not Lucinda’s sedan.This one was unfami
RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 138
I didn’t sleep.Not in the way that mattered. My eyes closed, sure, but my mind stayed spinning like a record stuck on the saddest part of a song.By morning, the guesthouse felt too small for how loud my thoughts were. Every corner of it held fragments of the night before. The hurt. The tension. The soft unraveling of the distance I’d worked so hard to build.I made coffee I didn’t drink. Paced the floor. Opened a book and stared at the same paragraph for fifteen minutes.Eventually, I stepped outside, barefoot, into the early sun and walked without really knowing where I was going.The gravel path led me toward the main house.I paused halfway, uncertain. The kind of uncertain that keeps your hand hovering just before a knock, or your foot over the gas pedal.Then I saw her—Lucinda—clipping herbs in the side garden near the kitchen window.She wore that same denim apron she always did, the one with the little embroidered lemon in the corner. I remembered asking her once why it was t
RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 137
I woke up tangled in sheets that smelled faintly of citrus and regret.The morning light slanted through the blinds, soft and golden, and for one long, disorienting moment, I thought I was back in our old apartment in Barcelona. The one with the balcony where Jeff used to bring me espresso in bed when he was trying to apologize without words. I blinked and sat up, dragging a hand through my hair.Reality was quieter now.Colder.I hadn’t seen Jeff since last night on the cliff. We hadn’t said much, not really. And yet, it had been the most honest conversation we’d had in years.I hadn’t answered his question—if I wanted this, if I wanted him. And that silence said more than I meant it to.But now?Now, I wasn’t sure if I regretted not answering, or if I was just afraid of what I might’ve said if I had.I padded into the tiny kitchen, barefoot and bleary, and found a note on the counter.Made you that horrible cinnamon tea you like. Thought it might make your morning a little less murd
RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 136
By the time I heard the knock on the guesthouse door, I’d already spent an hour pretending to be asleep.Another forty minutes sitting cross-legged on the rug, watching the flickering shadow of a candle I didn’t remember lighting.And a whole lifetime—give or take a few regrets—trying to make sense of why Jeff’s voice still echoed in my chest like a memory that refused to fade.The knock came again. Three soft raps. Not demanding. Just… patient.Of course, it was him.I didn’t answer. Instead, I stood frozen in the middle of the room, hands balled in the sleeves of the old sweatshirt I’d pulled from my overnight bag—the one I kept in the back of the closet for emergencies. Ironic, really. This whole week had been one long, slow-motion crisis, and the only person I knew how to call was also the one I’d once sworn never to depend on again.“Demi?” Jeff’s voice was low, muffled by the door. “Can I just… talk? I’ll leave after.”I closed my eyes. Damn him.Damn his persistence.Damn the w
RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 135
It was supposed to be a quiet morning.Jeff had gone out early to meet with someone from his old agency—an intel drop that couldn’t wait. I told him I’d be fine alone. That the place was fortified enough to hold off a small war. And, besides, I needed space.What I didn’t tell him was that part of me was restless. I’d been avoiding the main house for the better part of two weeks, confining myself to the guesthouse like a self-imposed exile. But that morning, with the sun warming the Pacific and nothing to distract me but an already-solved codebase, I found myself walking up the flagstone path toward the villa.It felt familiar. Too familiar.I hadn’t lived here—not really. Just a few visits during the height of our marriage. A retreat after press circuits, missions, burnout. But I remembered the smell of it—the sea salt, old wood, and Jeff’s cologne lingering in corners he barely touched.I told myself I was just looking for a charger.That was a lie.I ended up in the west wing. The
RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 134
Moving into Jeff’s California villa felt like slipping into a dream I never thought I’d touch again. The ocean sang just beyond the bluffs, wild rosemary danced in the breeze, and the scent of fresh paint lingered from where he'd redone the guesthouse months ago—"just in case," he said with a shrug, like preparing a space for a ghost was perfectly normal.Jeff let me be. He didn’t hover or pry, didn’t sneak midnight glances through my windows like he joked he might. But he was there—every morning with his coffee, every evening with those eyes that held back something unsaid.I hadn’t said yes to moving into his house yet.And every day that passed, it became clearer why.It wasn’t just the fear. It wasn’t just the note, or the threat, or the quiet paranoia that settled in my bones whenever I caught a shadow move too quickly.It was that Jeff Ortega still loved me. And he didn’t hide it.And I wasn’t sure if I was brave enough to love him back.One afternoon, maybe five days after I’d
RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 133
It didn’t happen immediately.In fact, the morning after Jeff asked me to come live with him in California, I gave him a hard "no.""It’s not about you," I told him. "It’s about me. About all the messes I’ve made and the ghosts I haven’t finished burying."He nodded like he expected that. Like maybe part of him had always known I wasn’t the type to say yes so easily.So I didn’t.For a week, I kept my distance. We worked together closely—Project: VESTIGE wasn’t going to dismantle itself—but at night, I went back to the apartment I’d borrowed from Maricel, a friend who owed me too many favors to count.Jeff didn’t push. Not once.But he lingered.He brought me coffee just the way I liked it, extra strong, no sugar, only a hint of cinnamon. He kept snacks around the bunker because I had the tendency to skip meals when I got too deep into code. And every time we stumbled over something hard—an encrypted line we couldn’t crack, a new name on Aurelius’s ledger that we recognized—he let me
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