All Chapters of After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back: Chapter 221 - Chapter 230

SELENEDinner limps on after that, the way a wounded thing limps, not dead, just dragging itself forward because stopping entirely isn't an option.Molly eats stiff-backed and mechanical, cutting her food into small, precise pieces she barely lifts to her mouth, her eyes drifting between me and my mother like she's deciding which of us she hates more tonight. I don't give her the satisfaction of looking away first.Andrew and Vivian have apparently recovered enough to go back to bickering about something entirely unrelated, their voices low and easy under the general tension, the resilience of youth doing exactly what it does best. Charles and Annabel speak quietly to each other further down the table, heads bent close, his hand occasionally finding hers like he needs the anchor of her more than usual tonight.I keep my attention mostly on Victor."Eat," I tell him, nudging his plate half an inch closer."I am eating.""You've had four bites.""I've had six.""I counted four."He gi

MAXWELLI find my mother still at the table when I storm back inside, staring at nothing, one hand pressed against her temple like she's trying to physically hold her skull together."Mom. Did you hear what he just said back there? Did you actually sit there and listen to him announce that.""I heard, Maxwell.""And? That's it? That's your entire reaction?"She closes her eyes. "I have a headache that feels like it's splitting my head in two, and I don't have anything left in me tonight to give you.""He married Selene." My voice climbs, cracking slightly on her name, still raw from saying it too many times already tonight. "My Selene. In front of everyone. With guards, Mom. He brought guards to his own family dinner because he knew exactly what kind of bomb he was dropping.""I know what he did.""Then react. Say something. Anything.""What would you have me say?" She finally looks at me, exhausted in a way that goes deeper than tonight alone. "That I'm furious? I am. That I feel lik

ARIANAHe pauses. “There was never a version of those years where my feelings belonged anywhere near the center of your attention, Grace. So I didn't put them there.""You could have told me eventually. After.""I was your friend first. Genuinely. I like being your friend, Grace. I like showing up for you, helping you carry whatever you're carrying, even knowing I had my own reasons underneath it the whole time." He finally looks at me. "That's not a contradiction. Both things are true.""So you admit it. You have ulterior motives.""I've never denied having them." Something shifts in his eyes, warmer now, more deliberate. "Would you like proof of one?"I don't get the chance to answer before he leans in and kisses me.It isn't tentative. It isn't the cautious, testing kind of kiss that leaves room for either of us to pretend it didn't happen. My guard has always come down easily around Mason. I understand, somewhere in the part of my brain still capable of understanding anything rig

ARIANAVictor and Selene settle into their new estate sometime in the spring, and life, somehow, keeps moving forward whether I'm ready for it or not.Linda calls me occasionally now, sometimes, intentionally through Selene, a strange secondhand warmth that's she has forced between us since that dinner, and the latest news is that her sister, Susan is pregnant.She finally settled with Daniel's, Linda gushes in a happy tone. I've never met the man properly. I don't need to. It's enough to know someone in this sprawling, complicated family is building something simple and good.My own months have been anything but simple.Mason's taken me deeper into Bindy-Syndicate territory than I ever expected, trips out to neighboring towns across Bridge Country, two or three days at a time, rooms full of men and women who nod at me now instead of assessing me, meetings where my name carries actual weight instead of curiosity. He's kept everything scrupulously platonic since that night on the roof

ARIANAThe coldness in his eyes is not cruel exactly, it’s just entirely without the warmth he usually keeps wrapped around every word he gives me.I don't look away, though something in me wants to."Syndicate business isn't Cox business," he says. "It isn't the Wolves. Half the men and women who smile at you in Eleanor's drawing room have already tested you in small ways you probably haven't noticed. You need to be able to protect yourself. And what's yours.""Meaning.""The twins."Something sharpens inside me instantly, a mother's attention locking onto a threat the way nothing else quite manages to, faster and sharper than fear for myself ever could. Mason sees it happen and something in his expression eases slightly, like he expected exactly that reaction and is quietly pleased it arrived right on schedule."I know you intend to let me handle the Syndicate side of things once this is yours," he says, gentler now, the coldness receding back under whatever warmth he usually wears