Divorced by my Billionaire Ex, Now He Wants Me Back! のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 91 - チャプター 100

91Alex.The morning after the café, I told myself I was only going to Stella’s house because I had documents to deliver. Forms from my lawyer: the next stage of the custody process, evaluation schedules, questionnaires the judge’s office had submitted. All logistical, all necessary. That was the excuse I clung to as I shaved, as I pulled on a clean shirt, as I hunted through my desk drawer for a pen that still worked. That was the story I told myself while I checked the folder one last time, while I drove through early-morning traffic with the radio off, while I parked outside her house.But the truth was, the excuse was thinner than paper. I could have sent the documents through her lawyer. I could have dropped them in her mailbox and driven away. I could have let the process unfold without needing to see her, without needing—God, needing was the word—to hear her voice, to check, if only for a minute, that she was okay.Maybe it was cowardice. Or maybe it was hope, sneaking in throu

93Alex.The doctor’s appointment ended in a blur. The small exam room was too warm, the lights too bright, and my mind wandered through every moment except the ones I was supposed to be paying attention to. I remembered the low, steady drone of the doctor’s voice, the click of her pen as she jotted down numbers and notes—height, weight, a note about Eli’s growth spurt, a smile as Emma answered her reading questions with the precise, careful voice she always used around new people. I must have nodded and said the right things when prompted. My own notes were scattered, unfinished thoughts: check immunization records, ask about the rash on Emma’s arm, book the next follow-up. But all of that faded into the background, a kind of static around the edges of something bigger.What stayed with me—what rooted itself in the center of my chest—was the feeling of my hand on Stella’s back. It had happened so naturally, so unconsciously. I’d reached out to steady her as she bent to help Eli with

95AlexI didn’t sleep much. The porch, the stars, the sound of her breath just inches from mine—every second of last night played on a loop behind my eyes. I lay in bed, staring at the cracked ceiling of my apartment, feeling both lighter and more off-balance than I had in years. My lips still tingled with the memory of her kiss. Six years of distance, heartbreak, and regret, undone by a single touch. I kept wondering if she felt it too, or if I’d imagined the whole thing.By seven, I was up, dressed, restless. The stack of custody paperwork was still in my briefcase, and even though I’d technically given Stella copies yesterday, I convinced myself there was a “new” form to discuss—a detail, a signature, something urgent enough to justify knocking on her door first thing on a Saturday.I rehearsed my excuse as I drove, heart pounding a little too fast for someone who was supposed to be calm and rational. I parked out front and checked my reflection in the rearview mirror. I looked th

97Alex.I don’t remember how we made it up the stairs.One moment, I was kissing her in the kitchen—years of longing, regret, and all the things I’d never said pouring through my fingertips, my mouth, my desperate heart. The next, she was clutching fistfuls of my shirt, dragging me closer, our bodies colliding in the kind of hungry, reckless way I’d dreamed about in all those sleepless nights. The wineglass was forgotten, dishes abandoned. The world had fallen away. There was only her—only us, suspended in that sharp, breathless now.She pulled me after her, slow at first, like she was daring herself to believe this was real. Her eyes searched mine, testing the lines between memory and reality. I let my hands trace her jaw, my thumb sweeping over the place I used to kiss goodnight. She shivered. For a second, I almost stopped, afraid that if I moved too quickly, she’d disappear. That this would break like a fever dream.But then something shifted—a small, fierce sound in her throat,

99Alex.The world moved on as if nothing had changed, but for me, nothing was the same.I barely slept, my mind chasing every detail of last night—the way Stella looked up at me in the half-light, the feel of her hands in my hair, the way she pulled me closer as if she’d finally stopped fighting herself. I could still smell her skin, taste the wine and salt and sweat on her neck, feel the aftermath of her shuddering against me as we clung to each other in the dark.By morning, reality came creeping in around the edges, as relentless as sunrise. The ache in my body was nothing compared to the ache in my chest—the fierce, trembling hope that maybe this wasn’t just a single night, that maybe we hadn’t just fallen back into old patterns. I wanted to believe we’d started something new, something we could build on, fragile and uncertain as it was.But when I got up, made coffee, and looked around my empty apartment, it all felt like a dream. There was nothing in these four walls to anchor