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All Chapters of Chasing His Divorced Wife: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

68 Chapters

Chapter 41

ELARA'S POVThe meeting was set for the following Tuesday at our attorney's office in downtown Seattle.Vivian flew in from New York. That alone told me something. She could have sent her own attorney. Instead she came herself, which meant this was personal enough that she needed to be in the room.I wore a grey blazer and kept my jewelry minimal. Maya wanted to come. I told her no."I don't need backup," I said."You might.""Then I'll handle it without backup. That's the point."She made a sound that communicated her full opinion without using words.Damien and I arrived together. Our attorney, a measured woman named Patricia Cho, had arranged the conference room so both parties sat across from each other with the table between them. Neutral. Professional. Deliberately uncomfortable.Vivian was already there when we walked in.She looked the way she always looked. Polished and expensive, every detail considered. Her attorney was a man in his fifties who radiated the specific confide

Chapter 42

DAMIEN'S POVJulian was in the hospital cafeteria alone with a coffee he wasn't drinking.He looked up when we approached. His eyes went to Elara, then back to me, and I watched him decide not to make a comment about her presence.Progress, maybe.We sat across from him. Nobody spoke for a moment."What did the cardiologist say?" I asked."Neurologist. It was a stroke." Julian wrapped both hands around his cup. "She said the clot was significant. Physical therapy will help the mobility but slowly. Could take a year. Could take longer.""And cognitively?""He's sharp. That's the cruel part, she said. He'll understand exactly what he can't do."That did sound like a specific kind of hell designed for Richard Cross."He'll hate it," I said."Yes."Elara was quiet beside me. Not uncomfortable, just letting us have it."The company," Julian said."What about it?""He'll want to be involved. He'll try to insert himself into decisions even from a hospital bed.""I know. I'll handle it."Juli

Chapter 43

ELARA'S POVWe got back to Seattle on a Wednesday and I had forty-eight hours before everything at the gallery demanded my full attention again.I used them to breathe.Damien gave me space without being asked, which was new enough that I still noticed it. He worked from his home office, ordered food, didn't fill the quiet with conversation. We existed in the apartment together comfortably, which sounds simple but had taken us the better part of a year to achieve.Friday morning I was back at the gallery when Natasha called."Julian accepted the Cape Town assignment.""I know. Damien told me.""He's actually excited about it. He won't say that, but I can tell." A pause. "Thank you.""For what?""For telling Damien to find him something real to do. Julian doesn't know how to exist without a purpose. He just usually finds destructive ones.""He needs to stay out of trouble, Natasha. I mean that kindly.""I know. I'll make sure he does."After she hung up I thought about what she'd said.

Chapter 44

DAMIEN'S POVThe wedding date was set for the last Saturday in April.Oregon coast, twenty-three people, a small inn called Harrow Point that sat on a bluff above a private beach. The owner, a woman named Della, had been running it for thirty years and treated every booking like a personal responsibility. She called twice to confirm details and both times spent more time talking to Elara than to me."She likes you," I said after the second call."She likes that we're not doing a production. She said her last big wedding booking left sand in the chandeliers.""We don't have chandeliers.""Exactly."March arrived and with it a problem I hadn't anticipated.My memory came back.Not all at once. Not dramatically. Small things first, fragments that surfaced without warning. The smell of coffee in the Cross Industries boardroom. The sound of my mother's voice at a particular pitch. The feeling of sitting at my own dining table in New York feeling like a guest in my own life.Then harder thi

Chapter 45

ELARA'S POVFour weeks before the wedding, my Portland gallery manager quit.Not dramatically. Daniel had been with me two years, was methodical and reliable, and gave me three weeks notice with a typed letter explaining he'd accepted a position at a museum in Chicago. It was professional and completely inconvenient.I spent the first day handling it calmly and the second day stress-cleaning the apartment at eleven PM.Damien watched me scrub the kitchen counter for four minutes before saying, "Talk to me.""I'm cleaning.""You cleaned this morning.""It needed doing again.""Elara."I put down the cloth. "Daniel leaving means I have to either promote someone internally who isn't ready or hire externally in four weeks while also planning a wedding and managing the Seattle gallery through the spring exhibition cycle.""Can the Portland gallery operate short-term without a manager?""Technically. Not well.""Promote internally for now. Give someone the acting title and the pay increase.

Chapter 46

DAMIEN'S POVWe drove to Oregon on a Saturday morning with the windows down.Elara had a playlist. Unhurried songs, nothing dramatic, the kind of music that exists comfortably in the background of good moments. She had her feet on the dashboard for the first hour until the temperature dropped near the coast and she put them down and pulled on a sweater.We didn't talk much. It wasn't uncomfortable silence. It was the kind that happens between people who don't need to fill space.Harrow Point came into view around noon. White building on a bluff, weathered in the specific way coastal things weather, surrounded by low grass that moved constantly in the wind off the water. Della met us at the entrance with the energy of someone who took genuine pleasure in their work."You're the last to arrive," she said. "Everyone else is settled. Your parents are in the garden, Elara."Elara looked at me. "My mother found the garden.""Of course she did."We checked in and I went to find James while E

Chapter 47

ELARA'S POVThe reception was lunch on the terrace.No formal program, no speeches beyond the ones people gave spontaneously when they felt moved to. Della's team served food that was simple and good. The clouds cleared exactly when the weather report said they would and by one PM the coast was bright and the water was visible all the way to the horizon.Maya stood and spoke first without asking anyone's permission."I've known Elara for fourteen years," she said. "I watched her disappear into a marriage that didn't deserve her and I watched her rebuild herself completely after. I told her multiple times not to do this." She paused. "I was wrong about the man standing next to her today. I'm big enough to admit that. Damien, don't make me regret saying that out loud in front of witnesses."Laughter. Damien raised his glass at her.Thomas spoke next. Short and direct, the way he did everything."I'm not a man who gives speeches," he said. "I'll just say this. My daughter is the best per

Chapter 48

DAMIEN'S POVWe stayed at Harrow Point for four days.Not a traditional honeymoon. We'd talked about Italy, Paris, the kind of places people go. But we both wanted quiet more than we wanted travel and the inn was already the right place. Della gave us the corner room with the best water view and left us largely alone.We slept late. Walked the bluff path in the mornings. Ate at the small restaurant in town where nobody knew us and nobody cared. Elara found a used bookshop on the main street and spent two hours in it while I sat outside with coffee and watched the coastal town do its ordinary Saturday things.She came out with four books and looked satisfied in the specific way she looked when she'd found something worth keeping."Anything good?" I asked."Everything good." She held up one. "This one's yours."It was a biography of a marine biologist. She'd been paying attention to what I read."Thank you," I said."You've been volunteering for six months and you still don't know what

Chapter 49

ELARA'S POVThe New York penthouse sold in June for twelve million dollars.Damien told me over dinner, matter of fact, the way he handled things now. No ceremony around it."Done," he said."How do you feel?""Like I closed a tab I forgot I had open."That was accurate enough.July brought heat and a complication I hadn't anticipated. The Seattle gallery received an acquisition offer.Not for a piece. For the gallery itself.A development group wanted the building for a mixed-use project. They'd approached the building owner directly and the owner, a man named Gerald who'd been perfectly reasonable for three years, called me personally to say he was considering it."I wanted to tell you before anything was decided," he said. "You've been a good tenant.""How long do I have?""They want an answer by September first."I sat with it for a day before telling Damien."Options," he said when I finished. "Buy the building yourself. Find a new location. Or close the Seattle gallery and conso

Chapter 50

DAMIEN'S POVThe Sunday morning over pancakes when I'd asked badly and she'd said not yet and I'd spent a year counting days. I remembered it because I'd written the date in my phone calendar with no label, just a small marker I'd look at occasionally to remind myself where we'd started.Elara didn't mention it. I didn't either. But I bought her a single sapphire earring to match the one she'd lost somewhere in the Portland gallery move, which she'd been quietly unhappy about for three months without making a production of it.I left it on her coffee cup on a Sunday morning.She picked it up and looked at it for a long moment."You noticed," she said."You checked the jewelry box twice a week.""I wasn't obvious about it.""You were a little obvious."She put it on immediately, standing at the kitchen counter in her robe, and then looked at me with the expression I'd learned meant she was feeling something she didn't have a quick word for."Thank you," she said."You're welcome."We h

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