All Chapters of MARRIED TO MY EX-FIANCE'S RUTHLESS UNCLE: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

I didn't call Cross until Monday.The weekend I just sat with it. Took Grace to the park on Saturday, pushed her on the swings, let her talk about whatever she wanted to talk about. School stuff, a book, something about fish. I didn't retain most of it. I was there but I wasn't fully there and I felt guilty about that the whole time.Marcus made lunch when we got back. The three of us ate. Normal conversation. Nothing happened.That's the thing nobody tells you. How completely normal everything looks from the outside while something is wrong. You pass the salt and ask about someone's week and load the dishwasher and the whole time there's this thing sitting in the room that only you can see.Sunday I went to my parents' without Marcus. Told him Grace had a cold coming.My father was in the study. My mother made tea and left us alone, which meant she already knew something."Dominic Ashford," I said.He went still."How long."A pause. "October."Two months. I looked at the desk."The

My father and I sat in the kitchen until noon.He walked me through everything Cross had built. Not the file I'd read the file. The thinking behind it. The way Ashford operated, the specific shape of what he was building, where the weak points were.My father had spent forty years in rooms with people like Ashford. He knew how they moved."He needs something signed," my father said. "That's the whole play. Without your authorisation on a document it's nothing. He can't approach the board directly, he can't go through normal channels, he's been declined three times. He needs your name.""So I just don't sign anything.""It's not that simple. He'll manufacture a reason. An urgent deal, something that looks routine. He'll route it through someone you trust so it doesn't come from him directly.""Who.""That's what Cross is still working out."I drank my coffee. Looked out at the yard. Grace would be with Marcus today, his weekend, and I'd told him I'd pick her up Sunday evening. That gav

Three weeks to Christmas and I was still in the hotel.I'd thought about going back. Kept getting close to it and pulling away. Going back before I had an answer just meant pretending until I forgot I didn't have one. I knew myself well enough for that.Grace did weeknights with me, weekends with Marcus. She'd stopped asking why and just lived inside the new shape of things. Kids did that faster than adults. Either she was genuinely fine or she was managing it quietly and I'd given her that tendency too young.I watched her. Couldn't tell which.My father called Tuesday on my personal number."Lunch. Today. One o'clock."He named a small place near the Tower. The kind he picked when he didn't want to run into anyone. He was already there when I arrived, menu closed, water untouched.We ordered. Did the warm-up conversation that wasn't really conversation. Then he put his fork down."How long are you staying at the hotel.""Until I know what I want.""And.""Still don't know."He looke

The divorce took four months.Not because it was ugly. Because these things just took time even when both people were being decent about it. We had lawyers who were good and between Marcus and me we'd agreed on the shape of it before either lawyer got involved, which helped.Grace's schedule. The apartment. The money, which was cleaner than it could have been because we'd kept things mostly separate from the start. My mother's advice from before the wedding, delivered in that flat way she had when something came from experience.I moved back into the penthouse when it was done. Marcus took his things to his own place. The movers came on a Saturday while Grace was with his mother. I didn't want her to see the boxes.That night just the two of us in the apartment, Grace asleep, I sat on the kitchen floor with my back against the cabinets and didn't move for a while. Not crying. Just sitting. The apartment felt like it was adjusting to something, the way rooms did when the people in them

Sunday and he was already in the kitchen with my father when we arrived.The two of them talking in the way my father talked to people he'd decided were worth it. Short, no filler, long pauses neither of them rushed to fill. I stood in the doorway for a second and watched.Grace spotted him and went straight over. No performance, no asking permission. He crouched down when he heard her coming most adults just leaned, he actually got down to her level and she launched into something about a fish and he asked one question and she was off.My mother came and stood beside me."Don't," I said."Haven't said a word.""You have a face.""I've had this face thirty years. Not my fault what it does." She went back to the stove.After dinner everyone drifted. I was in the hallway when Cross came out of the study."Pipeline thing," he said before I could ask. "Your father wanted to talk it through.""He could have called me.""He tried. You had your phone off."Bath time. Probably true.We stood