Semua Bab Dear CEO, I Want a Divorce: Bab 131 - Bab 140

OSTARA’S POVI didn’t breathe until I’d reached the far side of the deck. The music was too loud, the chatter a blur, but none of it dulled the feeling of his eyes on my back.I kept moving. One step. Another.“Ostara—” Cameron’s voice came from behind me, low but concerned. “What happened? You look—”Before he could finish, a voice cut through the noise.“Elisha!?”I froze.It wasn’t shouted… it was sharp. Certain. It hit my spine like a strike.I forced myself not to turn. Turning would mean confirming I was, in fact, Elisha. But that didn’t matter, because I could already feel Anthony walking towards us. Before I knew it, he was next to Cameron, looking at me with a mix of relief and confusion. “Elisha!” he exclaimed. It was no longer a question. Cameron stepped slightly in front of me, confused. “Elisha? No, that’s not her—”“Don’t,” I cut in, quickly, quietly.If Cameron said my name—my real name—it would be worse. Far worse.Anthony had no reason to connect Ostara Beaumont wi

OSTARA’S POVThe beautiful villa in Lake Como had become my prison.I could walk from one end to the other in under a minute now without looking at anything—no lingering on the terracotta tiles, no glance at the lake through the French doors, no pause at the windows when the sunlight painted the water gold.Because every time I stopped, I imagined him.Anthony.Somewhere beyond the walls. In a car. In a café. On a bench. Watching me with a pair of binoculars probably only the CIA had access to. Peter’s guards around the villa said nobody had come by or been anywhere around the villa. That did nothing to calm my nerves. The day Donna was born, I’d promised her safety. I’d promised myself she’d never know what it was like to be afraid the way I had been. Now, I couldn’t even bring myself to stand in my own garden with her.She didn’t understand, of course.“Mama!” she shouted from somewhere downstairs, her voice bright and eager. “Let’s goooo, I want to find that butterfly again!”I

ANTHONY’S POVThe first thing I noticed about Lake Como was how quiet it was compared to London. The second was how quickly that quiet could become suffocating if you didn’t have anything to distract you.Zane was already in my hotel suite when I arrived, lounging in an armchair with a bottle of still water in hand, like he owned the place. He had that casual, unhurried energy that always made me feel like I was the one running late to something.“Welcome to paradise,” he said, gesturing toward the open balcony doors. “Shame we’re going to spend it in a tux.”I dropped my overnight bag on the low leather bench at the foot of the bed. “How long have you been here?”“An hour. Figured I’d spare you the jetlag complaints.”I loosened my jacket and sank into the opposite chair. “How’s St. Xavier’s?”He gave me a measured look—six years apart, and I still knew when he was deciding how much to say—then shrugged. “Depends on who you ask. Officially, the board’s thrilled. They’ve completely s

OSTARA’S POVThe paper bag of croissants was still warm in my hand. The cardboard coffee tray balanced against my hip, steam curling into the air. But the heat pressing against my skin wasn’t just from the food. It was from the conversation still running through my head—the words I had finally said aloud, the silence that had followed, the look on Anthony’s face when he realized he couldn’t answer me.I stepped back into the park, the sharp scent of grass mixing with the faint sweetness of the pastries. Donna’s laughter carried from the swings, clear and untroubled. Penny’s voice followed, the two of them calling out instructions to each other as though their lives depended on swinging higher, faster.Davina spotted me first. She was perched on a bench beside Bethany, sunglasses shoved into her hair, her body angled so she could keep watch on the kids. The moment she saw my face, she stood.“You’re late,” she said, but the tease in her tone couldn’t hide the quick scan she gave me. Sh

ANTHONY’S POVShe walked out.Not storming, not dramatic—just cool, deliberate steps past me, past the tables, past the door that chimed like a final punctuation mark.I stayed standing where she’d left me.For a moment I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. The word Elisha had died between my teeth, replaced by the one she couldn’t deny, the one that made her stiffen: Ostara. And still, she’d slipped out of reach as though I hadn’t spoken at all.The world tilted back into place around me, ordinary sounds filtering in—the scrape of cutlery, the hiss of the espresso machine, chairs shifting across tile. Someone muttered in Italian about me blocking the way. A couple sidestepped past, the woman shooting me an irritated glance as if I were some statue dropped in the middle of the room.I forced myself to sit. Back at the table, the book lay where I’d left it, open but unread. My coffee was cold. The lake outside glittered, mockingly calm, as if nothing seismic had just happened.I stared at