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CHAPTER 145
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2025-05-24 00:01:30
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RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 145
June brought a kind of stillness that wasn’t silence.It was the kind of stillness that came after a storm, when the trees were stripped bare and the air tasted clean. No more secrets thickening the air. No more knives behind smiling teeth.The world didn’t feel fixed. It just felt like mine again.I moved through my mornings with a steadiness I hadn’t known before. No rush. No haunting emails. No donors demanding meetings over power breakfasts. I drank coffee on my porch while the sun climbed the sky, listening to birds argue in the branches.Some days, I didn’t speak until noon.And for the first time in years, I didn’t feel behind.When the news broke about the Panama extradition, I was alone in the garden.Letty texted me first:"Jeff’s name is on the docket. He’s really doing it."I didn’t know how to feel.Proud? Wary? Moved?All I knew was that I sat down in the grass and cried. Not because I missed him. Not because I wanted him back.But because for once, the world tilted in a
RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 144
Afterward, I stepped outside, away from the crowd, into the cold evening air.I didn’t expect Jeff to be there.But he was.He looked thinner. Humbled. No coat. Just a hoodie, hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on the sky.“You watched?” I asked.He nodded. “You were brave.”“I was angry.”“Both can be true.”I studied him. “Are you going to Belize?”He smiled sadly. “To hide? No. To testify? Yes.”“What?”He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a document.“The authorities found more accounts. Some linked to people Camille worked with internationally. They want my help to trace the chain. Extraditions might be involved. I said I’d go.”“You’d testify… abroad?”He nodded. “It’s not a deal. It’s service. Penitence, maybe.”My throat thickened. “You’re leaving?”“In two days.”I looked away.“Demi,” he said gently. “I know I can’t ask you to wait.”“But you want to.”He didn’t deny it.I nodded. “Then go do the right thing, Jeff. Not for me. Not for Belmont. For yourself.”He stepp
RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 143
The next move had to be bold. Bigger than town meetings and quiet confessions.We called Marcus, the journalist I’d once avoided.“I want to go public,” I told him. “All of it. With your help.”He didn’t hesitate. “Let’s burn it down.”The article went live on a Tuesday.“Power Broker: The Land, the Lies, and the Woman Behind the Curtain.” Marcus didn’t hold back—Camille’s voice, the recordings, the deals, the betrayal of Belmont’s trust. And it wasn’t just her. Jeff’s name was there too, threaded carefully through the article like a cautionary tale: a man who let ambition blind him. A man who almost became her.The town exploded.By noon, protesters gathered outside City Hall. Social media surged with calls for Camille’s arrest and demands for Belmont’s land trust to be audited. People who once turned their backs on me now reposted my quotes from the article. Strangers reached out. Survivors. Whistleblowers. Even donors.But as the dust cleared, something lingered beneath the adrenal
RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK CHAPTER 142
The headline dropped just before noon."Whistleblower’s Daughter Linked to Decades-Old Land Corruption Scandal."My name wasn’t in the title, but the article didn’t hold back. Photos of me from the fundraiser, from the town hall, from the auction—plastered alongside vague accusations and one damning quote:“Some people return home to heal. Others return to finish what their families started.”It was Camille. The voice was unmistakable. Cold. Calculated.My phone lit up with messages. Jeff’s. Lucia’s. Even Leon’s.The worst one came from Brenda.Brenda:Is it true? Did your family take part in that? Demi, please tell me it’s not like they’re saying.I nearly threw the phone into the sink.Jeff was already waiting by the stables when I got there, phone in one hand, newspaper in the other.“She moved fast,” he said, jaw tight. “Faster than I expected.”“She’s trying to turn the town against me before we can speak.”Jeff shook his head. “No—she’s trying to scare you into silence. This is
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
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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
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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
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