All Chapters of Marrying My Ex for Revenge: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The hallway outside feels like drowning in air. I press my back against the wall. Try to breathe past the panic clawing up my throat. What did I just do? I defended him. Publicly. Tied my reputation to his in front of twelve witnesses who will absolutely tell everyone they know. But I didn't declare love. Didn't promise forever. Didn't give him certainty or myself safety. I showed up. That's all. The rest is still terrifyingly unwritten. Voices filter through the door. The board is voting. I should leave. Walk away before the outcome traps me further. Instead, I wait. Stand in this hallway like a defendant awaiting verdict. Back pressed to the cold wall. Heart hammering against ribs. Seconds drift by. Perhaps two. Perhaps twenty. Time acts oddly when you're waiting to find out if you just saved someone or condemned them. Finally, the door opens. Board members file out. Some avoid my eyes. Others nod with expressions I can't read. Respect. Maybe. Or judgment. Or just exhaus

I’d arrived thirteen minutes early because my penthouse feels like a mausoleum. And waiting there meant staring at my phone willing it to buzz with a cancellation text."Usual?" The barista didn't look up from the espresso machine.I nodded.She started making Elena's coffee first. Oat milk latte. Extra shot. Cinnamon dust on top. The order I'd memorized like a prayer and repeated.Then mine. Black. Simple. The kind of order that didn't require thought.I paid. Carry both cups to our corner table. The one by the window where morning light cut through glass at the right angle.Where I'd sat every day Elena didn't show and convinced myself that consistency mattered even when no one witnessed it.Now I sit waiting with two coffees and the hollow ache of hope that still feels dangerous after learning that hope could destroy.The door opens at 7:44.Not her.A college student with headphones and a laptop bag. Then a businessman in navy pinstripe. Then a woman with a stroller who orders som

Adrian stands in my doorway holding takeout from the Thai place.Not scotch. Not wine. Pad Thai and spring rolls in greasy paper bags that smell like garlic and desperation."Melissa's at book club." I step back. Let him in.He doesn't ask how I knew what he needed. Just walks past me into the living room where Tommy's wooden train tracks sprawl across.Adrian sets the food on the coffee table. Stare at the chaos as if he looks long enough, the logic will reveal itself. "He's asleep?""An hour ago. Fought it for twenty minutes because sleep is apparently optional at five." I grab plates from the kitchen. "Have you eaten yet?""No."The admission comes quiet. The kind of no that means he forgot to eat. That he's been moving through his day on autopilot, mind somewhere else entirely.We sit on opposite ends of the couch. The same positions we took as kids when Mom was still alive and Dad worked late and we'd steal leftover Chinese from the fridge without speaking.Back when silence betw

Pier 84 at dawn smells like salt and diesel and the particular cold that settles into bones before sunrise. I arrive at six. Been standing here watching the Hudson turn from black to gray to something almost blue. Trying not to catalog all the ways this conversation could end. She tells me about Ava, then walks away. Thanks me for respecting her privacy, closes the door I've been waiting outside for weeks. She reveals something about Ava's father that makes my presence impossible. Complicated custody. An ex who's returning. A story I can't compete with. She changes her mind. Realizes that inviting me into her daughter's world means risk she's not ready to take. My phone reads 6:28. Two minutes. A jogger passes. Earbuds in, focused on pace instead of the man standing at the pier's end looking like he's about to jump or pray or both. 6:29. Then Elena appears. She walks down the pier in jeans and a cream sweater slipping off one shoulder. Hair loose, catching light that's still

I'm sitting in my car outside Elena's building at 7:50 AM, holding a stuffed toy and gasping for calm. The dragon plushie feels ridiculous in my hands.Nathan glances at me in the rearview mirror. "You look like you're about to defuse a bomb.""Feels about the same.""It's not a board meeting.""Board meetings I can handle." I grip the plushie tighter. "A four-year-old whose father disappeared? That's different territory."He shifts in his seat, turns to face me. "My daughter was three when I started dating her mother. Scared me more than combat deployments." He pauses. "Just be present. Kids don't need you to be perfect.""What if I say the