All Chapters of MY EX HUSBAND’S REGRET : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

33 Chapters

First day at work

“A few times. Usually just in passing. He’s intense but fair from what I’ve heard. Why, have you met him?”“Briefly. During the interview process.”That was technically true.“He’s single, you know.” Kelly had apparently been listening. “Every woman in this building has a crush on him. Rich, hot, powerful. The holy trinity.”“He’s also our boss,” James pointed out. “Pretty sure there are rules about that.”“Rules are meant to be broken.” Kelly waggled her eyebrows.“I’m not interested,” I said quickly. Too quickly, judging by the way Melissa looked at me.“Fair enough. Workplace romances are messy anyway.”They moved on to other topics, but I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in my stomach. Being here, working in Adrian’s building, knowing he was somewhere in this same tower, it felt dangerous. Like I was playing with fire.I made it through the rest of the day without seeing him. Small miracle. By five o’clock my brain was fried from information overload and I was ready to escape.I

Hopeful

I didn’t wait until I got home to call Natalie back. The second I stepped out of the building onto the Fifth Avenue, I hit redial, pressing the phone against my ear hard enough to hurt, but who cares?The street was packed with people rushing home from work, a river of suits and briefcases and exhaustion flowing around me.Pick up, pick up, pick up.“Ivy.” Natalie answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”“Just left work. What did Marcus find? What’s wrong?”“Are you somewhere you can talk? Like actually talk?”My stomach dropped. “Nat, you’re scaring me.”“I know. I’m sorry. But this isn’t a phone conversation. Can you come over?”“Now?”“Yeah. Please. I’ll order food. We can eat while we talk.”I looked at the subway entrance, then in the direction of Queens where my empty apartment waited. I didn’t want to go home, and sit alone with whatever bomb Natalie was about to drop.“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” I said.The subway ride to Natalie’s neighborhood felt endless. My mind

Hopeful II

We stood there in her living room, me crying and her holding me, until the buzzer rang with our food delivery.Natalie ordered me to wash my face while she got the food. By the time I came out of the bathroom with puffy eyes and splotchy cheeks, she had everything laid out on her coffee table. Pad thai, spring rolls, and curry that smelled amazing.I wasn’t hungry, but I forced myself to eat. Natalie was right, I needed to keep my strength up.“Marcus wants to meet with you,” Natalie said, spooning curry onto her plate. “He has questions about people in your life. Anyone who might have access to photos of you, anyone with technical skills, anyone who might have a motive.”“When?”“This weekend if you’re free. Saturday maybe?”I nodded, pushing noodles around my plate. “Did you hear back from Ethan? About meeting for coffee?”Natalie’s expression tightened. “Yeah. He said no.”“Of course he did.”“He was actually kind of rude about it. Said he had nothing to say to me and I should stop

Elara

Friday came faster than I expected. The week had passed in a blur of new employee training, content calendars, brand guidelines, and trying to remember everyone’s names without looking at my phone under the desk. Work was actually good. Better than good. It gave me something to focus on besides the wreckage of my personal life, somewhere to put all the energy I’d been wasting on crying and replaying those horrible birthday party moments in my head.Sarah was a good manager. Direct and no nonsense but fair, the kind of person who would told you exactly what she wanted and left you alone to deliver it. She’d already given me two projects to run independently, social media campaigns for two of Rhode Enterprises’ smaller brands, and seemed genuinely pleased with my initial ideas.“You’re picking this up fast,” she’d said on Thursday, looking over my campaign proposal. “I expected at least two weeks before you were ready for independent work.”It felt really good to hear that. Like maybe I

Watched

The phone nearly slipped out of my hand.I read the message three more times, standing barefoot on the sidewalk outside my building, the cool concrete biting into my feet. The more I looked at the picture, the more my stomach drop a little further.*Didn’t waste any time did you? Whore.*Unknown number with nothing to identify who was on the other end.So someone has been there tonight. Sitting somewhere near that restaurant, close enough to photograph us through the window. Close enough to see Adrian’s hand cover mine, to watch me smile for the first time in weeks and decide to punish me for it.My eyes shot to the street around me instinctively. It was empty, with just parked cars and a couple walking their dog half a block away, not paying any attention to me.Whoever it was, they were already gone. Perhaps it was the same person that framed me with those pictures.I took the elevator up to my apartment with shaking hands and locked the door behind me, sliding the chain across even

The lawyer

Monday morning arrived with sharp cold that reminded you winter was coming whether you were ready for it or not. I was already up at six, dressed by seven, sitting at my small desk with a cup of coffee, with my laptop opened, searching for divorce lawyers in Manhattan. The kind that were good but not so expensive that I’d burn through the last of my savings before the case even started.It was harder than I expected. Every website looked the same with professional headshots and promises of aggressive representation and confidential consultations. Words designed to make desperate people feel like they were in capable hands.I didn’t feel capable of anything right now. But I was trying.I narrowed it down to three names. All women, which felt important for reasons I couldn’t fully articulate. All with strong reviews and reasonable consultation fees. I sent emails to all three before leaving for work, explaining my situation briefly and asking for the earliest available appointment.The

The lawyer II

Back at my desk I spent the afternoon trying to focus on work and mostly failing. Tuesday passed without incident, while wednesday arrived and with it my consultation with Diana Reeves.Her office was in Midtown, sixteenth floor, all clean lines and quiet authority. She was in her late forties with natural gray streaks in her dark hair and the kind of calm focused energy that made you believe she’d seen everything and nothing surprised her anymore.She listened to my entire story without interrupting once. The birthday party. The photos. Ethan throwing me out. The email about the joint accounts and the house.When I finished she was quiet for exactly five seconds.“First things first,” she said. “You have more rights than he’s implying. Significantly more.”Something unknotted in my chest. “Really?”“New York is an equitable distribution state. That means marital assets are divided fairly, not necessarily equally, but fairly. The house, the joint accounts, any investments made during

Homey

I didn't sleep Tuesday night.I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, running through every possible scenario. Maybe my mother had seen something that made her question the photos. Maybe my father had said something that shifted her thinking. Maybe Natalie's visit had planted a seed that had finally started growing.Or maybe something terrible had happened and she needed me for a completely different reason.By the time my alarm went off at six I had dark circles that no amount of concealer was going to fix and a headache sitting right behind my eyes like a slow burning fire.Work was torture. I sat at my desk going through the motions, answering emails, updating content calendars, pretending to be a functioning human being while my brain was completely somewhere else. Melissa brought me coffee and looked at me with that perceptive quiet way she had but didn't ask questions, which I appreciated more than I could say.Adrian messaged me mid morning through the internal system.ADRIAN:

A train of thought

There was a wave of Silence. Mom's hands tightened in her lap. "We saw those pictures, Ivy. They were very convincing.""Yes they were, and that was the point. Whoever made them wanted them to be convincing. They wanted everyone to believe the worst about me instantly." I leaned forward. "And it worked. It worked on my husband, my best friend and my own parents.""We're sorry." Dad said it quietly but clearly. Two words that I'd been waiting weeks to hear. "We should have listened.""Walter," Mom said softly, and I realized she was crying. My mother, who never cried in front of anyone, had tears tracking silently down her cheeks. "We failed you. We failed our daughter."Something cracked open in my chest. All the anger and hurt and loneliness I'd been carrying, it didn't disappear exactly, but it shifted. It Made room for something else."I'm not asking you to fix everything tonight," I said, my own voice breaking. "I know it's not that simple. But I needed you to believe me. That's a

The seed of doubt

I missed my stop.Sat there frozen while the doors opened and closed and the train pulled back out into the tunnel, carrying me one station past where I needed to be. I didn't even register it until the next stop announcement came through the speakers and I looked up and didn't recognize the station name.I got off mechanically, crossed to the other platform, waited for the train going back. Stood there in the fluorescent light with my hands shoved in my pockets and my mind running so fast it felt like static.Natalie set up the slideshow.It was such an obvious thing. Such a simple, right there in front of my face thing. She had been the one to rush toward the TV that night. She had been the one to dim the lights. She had been the one laughing and bouncing on her heels with her phone out, performing excitement, performing the role of the enthusiastic best friend putting together a surprise for someone she loved.I had watched her do it. Watched her take control of the room with a smi

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