Chapter 161

Evelyn I didn’t expect to see her. She was the last person I expected to see. She was sitting on my couch with her handbag on her lap and her coat still on, and when I pushed the door open my heart lurched. “Mom you scared me!” I pressed my hand flat against my chest. “What are you doing here?” She looked up at me. “Theo gave me the address.” I stared at her. “I went to see him at the hospital,” she said. “I needed to see he was alright. He wrote down your address and told me to come.” My chest constricted painfully. I didn’t move from the doorway for a moment, just stood there looking at my mother sitting in my house in her good coat like she wasn’t sure she belonged here, and felt the exhaustion of the day press down on me even harder. I closed the door and sat down across from her. She watched me settle and then she looked down at her handbag and said, “I saw Grace’s interview.” My jaw tightened. “I sat in my living room and watched that woman say those things

Chapter 162

My phone rang the moment my mom’s car roared out of the driveway.I answered after the third ring. It was Forrest, Alfred’s lawyer, and hearing his name flash across my screen at this hour made my stomach lurch before he even opened his mouth.“Mrs Cole,” he said. “I’m calling to inform you of a new development. Mr Cole has decided to accelerate the custody matter. He will be filing an emergency motion tomorrow morning seeking full custody of Clara.”My hand tightened around the phone so hard my knuckles ached.“The hearing has been scheduled for four pm tomorrow.”Four pm. Less than twenty four hours from now.I thanked him and ended the call and sat there with the phone in my lap and stared at the wall. The most awful part wasn’t that Alfred was doing this. The most awful part was being informed this late. Deliberately this late. He had waited until I was emptied out, until my mother’s car had barely left the street, until I had nothing left in me. Alfred had timed it the way he tim

Chapter 163

“Dad why would you do that?”Clara’s voice echoed through the entire house, sharp and trembling, all the way from her bedroom. Alfred gritted his teeth and strode down the corridor and stopped outside her door, watching her yank clothes from her wardrobe and shove them into her bag with shaking hands.“Clara calm down!” he barked.“Calm down?” She whirled around and glowered at him, her eyes blazing and wet at the same time. “You filed a court motion about me without telling me. Without even asking me. I had to find out from people at school Dad. People at school!”“It was for your own good…”“Your own good?” She scoffed and turned back to her packing, fuming, pulling things off hangers and folding nothing, just stuffing everything in. “You want to stand there and talk to me about my own good? After everything? After what the whole school is saying?” Her voice cracked but her hands didn’t stop moving. “I know everything now. The lies. The cheating. The other family you were hiding whi

Chapter 164

Clara had been in her room since last night.I left food outside her door before bed and when I woke up the empty plate was back in the corridor. That was enough for now.I pulled into the driveway and looked at Theo in the passenger seat.“You don’t have to do this,” he said.“Get out of the car Theo.”“I can manage…”“You were shot three weeks ago and you live alone.” I looked at him. “Get out of the car.”He gritted his teeth and reached for the door.I grabbed his bag and we went inside and I set it in the spare room and came back to find him lowering himself carefully onto the couch, wincing as his shoulder settled.“She’s upstairs,” I said. “Give her time.”He nodded.Twenty minutes later the footsteps came down the stairs.Clara strode into the living room in an oversized sweatshirt, hair pulled back, and the moment she saw Theo her steps faltered. Just slightly. Just enough.She had seen him before. Plenty of times at the campaign office, across rooms at events, once in a corr

All Chapters of The Governor’s Wife, His beautiful ruin: Chapter 161 - Chapter 164

Chapter 161

Chapter 162

Chapter 163

Chapter 164