All Chapters of He Wants Me More After Divorce: Chapter 271 - Chapter 280

Harrison’s POVHelena’s grip on the handbag strap was white-knuckled now.She stared at me.“The folder hurts her reputation,” I said. “It doesn’t touch her. Not really. Not the part of her that actually did those things to your daughter. You’ll expose the finishing school and she’ll lose some dinner party invitations, and she’ll sit in her kitchen and keep being exactly who she is.”“Then what do you suggest?” she asked tightly.“I suggest,” I said slowly, “that you let me handle my mother, and take the agreement my lawyer is drafting—an agreement that gives you every single thing you asked for—and you sign it. I suggest you put the folder in a drawer somewhere and use it if you ever need to, but not as a weapon. As insurance.”“And Claire?”“Claire is my problem.”“She’s been your problem for years and you’ve done nothing about her.”That landed. I flinched before I could stop myself.“Fair enough,” I muttered.“Is it?” Helena shot back coldly. “Because from where I’m standing, you’

Estelle’s POVChloe’s door was cracked open. I stood outside it and listened.Two sets of breathing. One shallow and fast. The other deeper and slower. Chloe, who slept like she was running from something even in her dreams, her inhales quick and slightly ragged.Lucas on his cushion pile on the floor, his breathing steady like a child who had learned to sleep deeply because his nights had been disrupted too many times for anything less than total unconsciousness to work.I leaned my head against the doorframe and looked through the gap.Shapes in the dark. Chloe in the bed, blanket pulled to her chin, one arm hanging off the mattress.Lucas below her on the cushions, curled on his side, the cat pajamas visible in the faint glow of the nightlight he needed.Our children were sleeping in my flat.Harrison was forty minutes away at the Donovan estate, breaking down a door to get to a woman who was having his baby.I straightened up from the doorframe and walked back to the kitchen.The

Estelle’s POVI looked at the table. My thumb found the groove in the wood where a crack ran through the grain, and I pressed into it until the nail bed turned white.“Nothing,” I said. “He gripped the steering wheel and drove and said absolutely nothing.”Daisy sat back heavily.“Not because he disagreed,” I added tiredly. “Because he couldn’t argue with it and he couldn’t accept it and he wasn’t ready to say either of those things out loud.”“God, Estelle.”“I know.”We sat with that for a moment. Daisy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked at the ceiling, the way she did when she was processing something she didn’t like.“And then I pointed something else out,” I continued slowly. “In the car, after we left. I’d asked Claire about the guard—just asked, casually, how the man got inside when the guard was at the gate twenty minutes earlier. That’s all I said.”“And?”“Claire didn’t answer the question. She jumped straight to accusing me of suggesting she’d staged a break-

Estelle’s POVThe conversation got quieter after that. Softer at the edges.Daisy told me about a woman at her office who had accidentally replied-all to an email complaining about the CEO and the fallout had consumed the entire week.I half-listened, nodding in the right places, grateful for the sound of her voice filling the space where my own thoughts would otherwise have rushed in.Around eleven she moved to the sofa.I found her a blanket—the one I’d folded earlier, the one from Chloe’s fort—and she pulled it over her legs and kicked off the mismatched socks.“Turn off that light,” she said, squinting at the kitchen overhead. “It’s giving me a headache.”I flipped the switch. The kitchen dropped into darkness, leaving only the hallway light and the faint glow from Chloe’s nightlight leaking under the bedroom door.“Better,” Daisy mumbled, already burrowing into the sofa cushions.I picked up both mugs and carried them to the sink. Rinsed them. Set them on the drying rack. Hung th

Estelle’s POVMy thumb stopped moving, its pad rested on the glass, the scroll frozen mid-motion.I looked at the photograph again. Harrison’s shoulders and his jacket and the back of his head. The gravel path and the window above.I tapped the group name at the top of the screen, found settings and hurriedly tapped the leave group button.A confirmation prompt appeared—Leave “Westfield Primary Parents”?—and I tapped confirm.The chat disappeared from my messages. The photograph, the emoji, the sympathetic thinking of you, all of it—wiped in three taps.My jaw was tight while I did it, the muscles along both sides clenched hard enough to make my back teeth ache, but my hands were steady and my thumb moved fast and I didn’t hesitate on any of the screens.I dropped the phone into my bag, started the engine, and pulled out of the car park.I set my bag under the desk as soon as I arrived at the clinic, hung my coat on the hook behind the door, and sat down.The computer screen was alrea