All Chapters of RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

The world didn't end when we broke into the Aurelius Core Hub.It didn't crumble beneath our feet or burn down in glorious spectacle. No alarms blared, no armed guards chased us through sterile corridors. The truth, it turned out, wasn't guarded by steel. It was buried in silence.And we had all the keys to break it wide open.The data archive was deeper than either of us imagined—line after line of operations, betrayals, signed approvals. But more than that, more than the list of names or off-the-record transactions, what cracked something in me was the final set of files."Perez, D."I clicked it open with a breath caught in my chest.Jeff stood behind me. Silent.There I was. Not just a name, but a profile. Surveillance logs. Decision matrices. Psychological assessments. They'd cataloged my grief, my rage, my desire to fight. They'd known how I would react before I ever did.They planned my trial like a play.The worst part? They'd manipulated me into trusting the one person they k

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

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

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

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