Все главы WANTING MY BILLIONAIRE EX-WIFE: Глава 31 - Глава 40

Ximena walked through the heart of Antonio Fashion like she hadn’t in weeks. No press blocking the exits. No board whispers behind glass walls. No scandal headlines scrolling across her phone.For once, there was quiet.Real quiet.Her heels echoed softly across the design floor as she moved past fabric tables, mannequin lines, and racks of half-finished pieces. Interns looked up from their sketches. Designers paused their fittings. For a brief second, the entire room seemed to hold its breath.And then, life continued.Rafael caught up to her from the side corridor, clipboard in hand.“You’re getting good at silencing storms,” he said with a small grin.She didn’t return the smile. But her tone was clear.“I’m not here to keep things quiet,” she said. “I’m here to make them impossible to ignore.”Rafael nodded. “Still… people expected you to resign. You didn’t. You restructured the board. Leandro’s gone. And today, the staff walked in calm. Not afraid.”“They feared me before,” she s

The sun was just beginning to rise when Ximena opened her eyes.Her bedroom was quiet. Too quiet.The space next to her was cold. Miguel was gone.But the ache he left behind wasn’t.She sat up slowly, her body still sensitive from the night before—her skin remembering the feel of his hands, her lips still tingling from the kiss that had shattered her guard.Her control, the thing she’d clung to for years, felt suddenly like silk slipping through her fingers.She hated it.By the time the city fully stirred, she was already dressed in a fitted black blazer and heels sharp enough to stab through glass.If she couldn’t kill the feelings, she could bury them under structure.Work was her armor.It always had been.—At Antonio Fashion, Rafael entered her office without knocking. He held a thick folder in one hand, a tablet in the other.She barely glanced up. “Good morning.”“You won’t think so in two minutes.”He dropped the folder onto her desk. On top of it, a printed alert from the l

The invitation arrived just after lunch, slipped into a thick cream envelope and hand-delivered to Antonio Fashion by a courier dressed in sleek gray.Ximena stared at it, untouched on her desk, while Rafael stood nearby with a worried frown on his face.“It’s last-minute,” he said, crossing his arms. “A public panel? With the press present? And Miguel scheduled to appear too? It feels like a setup.”She didn’t respond right away. Her eyes stayed on the thick paper, the gold-embossed logo of *Verve Luxe*, one of the city’s most exclusive media outlets. The panel was titled *Luxury Forward: Innovation, Identity, and the Future of Fashion*. She had declined when first approached weeks ago. At the time, her name had been in too many headlines.Now, it was back in them for all the wrong reasons.Rafael tried again. “You don’t have to prove anything. You’ve weathered worse. Skip it.”Ximena picked up the envelope, slipped her manicured finger under the seal, and opened it.“They’re putting

Miguel stepped out of the Ricardo Enterprises building just past midnight. The board meeting had dragged on for hours, and he was exhausted. The underground parking lot was almost empty, the echo of his footsteps the only sound.Carlos had offered to walk him to the car, but Miguel had waved him off with a tired smile. “I’m fine,” he’d said. “Go home. I just need air.”Now he regretted it.As he reached his car and unlocked it, he heard footsteps—quick, purposeful. He turned.Two masked men.“What the—”Before Miguel could reach for the handle, one man lunged at him, slamming him against the car. The second pulled a gun.Miguel fought back. Elbowed the man holding him. Tried to dodge—**Bang.**The gun fired.Pain tore through his abdomen. Miguel stumbled, gasped, and dropped to the ground.The attackers fled.He tried to speak, to call out—but the pain was unbearable. He lay on the cold concrete, eyes fluttering. Blood soaked his shirt.A security guard found him minutes later. “Sir!

The sun was barely up when Ximena Antonio stepped into her office, her heels clicking against the marble floor. A stack of press clippings, emails, and design mockups were already spread out across her desk—but her eyes weren’t on any of them.Her assistant, Lia, entered quietly with a thick, cream-colored envelope in her hand.“This just arrived by courier,” she said. “It’s… expensive.”Ximena raised an eyebrow, reaching for the envelope. The paper was heavy, embossed with a golden crest. She flipped it open and pulled out the invitation inside.Her breath caught for just a second.It was an official invitation to the **Global Luxury Fashion & Tech Summit** in Paris—**Antonio Fashion had been nominated for the Global Innovation Award.**She skimmed the details quickly, her mind moving fast.Not just the award. The attendees. The timing.But what made her stop completely… was the handwritten note clipped to the top corner. *“I’ve been watching your work from a distance. It’s time we