All Chapters of Falling For My Ex Husband’s Uncle Wasn’t Part Of My Plan : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Nadia’s POV I didn’t call Callum the day after the spa. I tried. God, I really tried. I picked up my phone at least twenty times. Opened our messages and just stared at his name. I Typed something. Deleted it. Typed something else. Deleted that too. Every single time. Meanwhile, Callum kept being Callum. Sweet. Patient. Completely unaware that his sister had just offered me twenty million dollars to disappear from his life. He texted me good morning. Asked how work was going. Then he sent me a picture of a terrible modern sculpture he’d seen outside a restaurant with the caption: This one’s in pain. Definitely taxes. I laughed despite myself. Then immediately felt awful afterward. Because I knew what was coming. I knew I was about to break his heart. The guilt sat inside my chest like a stone that kept getting heavier every time he was kind to me. By the third day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I sat at my kitchen counter staring at the black card. Twenty million dollars.

Nadia’s POV The next three days were miserable. There was really no other word for them. Miserable. I threw myself into work. I sketched. I attended online meetings. I answered emails. I pretended everything was normal and kept my face completely composed during video calls and smiled the right amount and said the right things. But every quiet moment betrayed me. Every time my phone buzzed, I looked up hoping it was him. Every time I cooked dinner, I remembered Callum standing in my kitchen arguing passionately about garlic. Everything reminded me of him. Which was deeply inconvenient. Because I had already ended it. Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself. The problem was that my heart hadn’t received the message yet. It was still operating on old information. Still expecting him. By Thursday evening I was sitting on my couch pretending to review design sketches. I’d been staring at the same page for twenty minutes. The lines blurred. I’d drawn something that looked

Callum’s POV It had been exactly two weeks. Not that I was counting. I was absolutely counting… down to the goddamn hour… and the realization annoyed me every single time it forced its way into my head. Two weeks since Nadia walked out of that restaurant, leaving nothing behind but the faint scent of her perfume and a hollow ache in my chest. I remembered how she stood in her apartment, looking like she wanted nothing more than to melt into my arms, while her lips flatly told me she didn't feel the same way. The worst part about the human mind is its capacity to rewrite reality when it’s desperate. I still didn’t know what to believe. Did she love me? Did she not? Had I completely imagined the heat between us? The way her gaze anchor-dropped onto my mouth whenever I leaned close. The way her genuine, throaty laugh cut through the noise of a crowded room. The way her shoulders visibly relaxed the second we were completely alone. None of it felt fake. If that was acting, she deserv

Callum’s POV I pointed at her over the roof of the car. “There it is again. Number six.” She closed her eyes as she slid into the leather passenger seat. “I am never recovering from this morning, am I?” “Probably not,” I said, closing her door and walking around to the driver's side. “But look at the bright side—your commute just got a lot faster.” I got back behind the wheel, and shifted into drive. The silence inside the car lasted approximately thirty seconds before she cleared her throat. “So,” she began carefully. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. “So?” “You're surprisingly normal,” she said, shifting her massive portfolio onto her lap. I let out a sharp chuckle. “Thank you? I think?” “No, seriously.” She turned in her seat to face me. “I expected a luxury hotel mogul to be significantly more... intimidating. Like, a tailored three-piece suit, permanent scowl, barking orders into a Bluetooth earpiece.” “I'm deeply offended,” I said, adjusting the collar of my c

Nadia’s POV The next morning we arrived at the company’s main building before nine. The receptionist was in a neat blazer and she had a smile so practiced it looked painted on. I stated my name and my reason for being there clearly and professionally. I watched the receptionist’s smile falter the second she found my file on her screen. Her cheeks went pink. Her eyes started moving between me and Mara nervously. Mara leaned forward on the counter. She had her professional voice on, which was somehow more terrifying than her loud voice. “So you can tell us who authorized this termination and what the official complaint against Nadia was. Right?” The receptionist looked around the lobby. Then she leaned forward and lowered her voice to nearly a whisper, glancing once at the security desk nearby. “Look, Miss Voss, I am honestly not supposed to say anything to you about this. The file is marked closed and I am not authorized to connect you to the department heads on this particular mat