All Chapters of I Married the Man My Ex Could Never Compete With : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

202 Chapters

Life Inside the Wall

Lydia POV The estate is beautiful. That’s the strange part. If someone dropped me here without context, I would probably call it peaceful. The property stretches across acres of land. Tall trees shield the house from the outside world, and the quiet feels almost luxurious compared to the chaos of the city. But beauty and freedom are not the same thing. And the longer I stay here, the more obvious that difference becomes. The first morning I wake up inside the estate, I forget where I am. For a few seconds, everything feels normal. Then I hear the sound of a door scanner unlocking somewhere down the hallway. And I remember. The fortress. The biometric gates. The security teams. Adrian. I sit up slowly in the large bed and glance toward the windows. The curtains are partially open, letting soft gray morning light spill into the room. Outside, the lawn stretches toward the tree line. And near the edge of the property, I can see a guard walking his patrol route. So much f

The Investor Meeting

Adrian POV Leonard Vance never schedules meetings without a reason. Men like him don’t waste time on casual conversations. Every invitation is a move on a chessboard. Every word chosen with care. Which is why when his request reached my office that morning, I accepted immediately. Not because I trust him. Because I wanted to see what game he believes he’s playing. The meeting takes place at a private investor club downtown. Old money prefers places like this. Buildings that look quiet and respectable from the outside while decisions worth billions happen behind closed doors. I arrive ten minutes early. The staff already knows who I am. They always do. “Mr. Cole,” the receptionist says with practiced politeness. “Mr. Vance is waiting for you upstairs.” Of course he is. Leonard Vance enjoys the illusion of control. I take the elevator to the top floor. The private lounge is empty except for one table near the windows. Leonard Vance sits there with a glass of

Lydia's Unease

Lydia POV The estate is quiet in a way that doesn’t feel natural. At first, I thought it would be peaceful. No reporters outside the gates. No endless cameras flashing whenever I step into public. No analysts speculating about the child growing inside me like it’s a financial asset. But silence, I’m starting to realize, has its own weight. By the third day here, the quiet begins to feel heavier than the noise ever did. I wake before sunrise. Not because I want to, but because sleep has become shallow lately. Pregnancy probably plays a role. So does the constant awareness that somewhere beyond the trees surrounding this estate, people are trying to reach us. I sit up slowly and glance toward the window. The property stretches across the dark landscape like a private world. Security lights glow faintly along the stone walls, and one of the guards is already making his patrol across the southern lawn. They never stop moving. Day or night. Someone is always watching. At first,

A Message From the Past

Adrian POV The estate runs like a controlled system now. Every vehicle entering the gates is inspected. Every delivery is screened before it even reaches the house. Owen’s team reviews every package, every envelope, every person who steps onto the property. Nothing arrives here without being checked twice. Which is why the envelope on my desk immediately feels wrong. I notice it the moment I walk into the study. Plain paper. No return address. No courier stamp. Just my name written across the front. Adrian Cole. I stop in the doorway. “Who delivered this?” I ask. Owen stands near the window reviewing security reports. He turns. “That arrived through the morning courier.” “And it passed inspection?” “Yes.” “Who cleared it?” “Two officers.” That means it went through standard protocol. Which means whoever sent it understood the system well enough to make it appear harmless. I walk toward the desk slowly. The envelope looks ordinary. Too ordinary. “X-ray results?

The First Crack

Lydia’s POV Something changes the moment Adrian receives the letter. He doesn’t say anything about it. No announcement. No explanation. No casual mention over dinner. But I notice the shift anyway. Because living with someone teaches you the rhythm of their behavior. The way they move through a room. The tone they use when they speak to people. The pauses between their words. Adrian’s rhythm changes. Subtly. Almost invisibly. But enough that I feel it. That evening the estate feels ten degrees colder. Security is tighter again. More guards appear near the outer gates. I see Owen speaking quietly with two officers in the hallway like they’re reviewing new instructions. No one tells me why. No one needs to. Adrian walks through the house like a man solving a problem that hasn’t revealed its full shape yet. Calm. Focused. But distant. I find him in the study around nine. The room is dim except for the desk lamp casting light across a stack of document

Arclight Moves

Adrain POV War rarely announces itself. Most of the time it begins quietly. A shift in numbers. A movement of money that seems ordinary until you look closely enough to see the pattern underneath. By the time the pattern becomes obvious, the attack has already begun. I’m halfway through a call with London when Damien walks into my office without knocking. That alone tells me something is wrong. He never interrupts meetings unless the situation demands it. I end the call immediately. “We’ll continue tomorrow,” I tell the investors. The moment the line disconnects, Damien drops a folder onto my desk. “You need to see this.” I lean back in my chair. “What happened?” “Arclight.” The name immediately sharpens my attention. “Explain.” “They just acquired another three percent of Cole Group shares.” My fingers tap once against the desk. “That puts them at” “Fourteen percent.” Too fast. Far too fast. I stand and walk toward the window overlooking the estate grounds. Guar

The Baby Becomes Political

Lydia POV I used to think pregnancy was something private. Something quiet. Something that belonged to two people preparing for a child. Now I understand how naïve that idea was. Because in my life, nothing stays private for long. Not the marriage. Not the scandals. And definitely not the baby growing inside me. The explosion starts on a Tuesday morning. At first, it looks like just another headline. By noon, it’s everywhere. I’m sitting in the sunroom when Margaret brings my tea and gently places the tablet beside the cup. “Mrs. Cole,” she says carefully, “you may want to see this.” That tone alone tells me the news won’t be pleasant. I glance at the screen. The headline is impossible to miss. COLE HEIR: WILL ADRIAN COLE’S UNBORN CHILD CONTROL THE COMPANY? I stare at the words. For a moment I feel like I’m reading about someone else. A stranger. Some public figure who exists only in financial headlines. Except that the stranger happens to be me. I open the arti

The Threat

Adrian POV Owen knocks on my office door at 2:17 a.m. He never knocks unless something is wrong. I’m still awake, reviewing the Arclight acquisition reports when he enters. His expression tells me everything before he even speaks. “We intercepted something,” he says. I close the document slowly. “What kind of something?” “Encrypted transmission.” “From where?” “External network traffic near the estate perimeter.” That makes me stand immediately. “Explain.” Owen places a tablet on the desk and pulls up a security report. A block of scrambled code fills the screen. “It was embedded inside a routine data signal,” he says. “One of our monitoring systems caught the anomaly.” “Incoming or outgoing?” “Incoming.” “Directed at the estate?” “Yes.” “Specifically?” He nods once. “At you.” I read through the technical analysis. Someone attempted to push an encrypted message through a civilian communications channel. Something subtle enough that a normal system wouldn’t notice

The War Declaration

Lydia POV I know something is wrong before Adrian says a single word. It’s the way the house feels. The estate has always been quiet, but tonight the silence is different. Heavier. Like the air itself is waiting for something to happen. Security moved twice in the last hour. New guards at the inner gate. Owen was walking through the hallway with a tablet, speaking in low voices with the surveillance team. No one explains anything to me. They rarely do. But I’ve lived long enough inside Adrian’s world now to recognize the signs. Something shifted again. And whatever it is… it isn’t small. I find Adrian in the study. The room is dim except for the soft light from the desk lamp. Papers are spread across the table in front of him—financial reports, legal documents, stock movement charts. War maps. That’s what they look like to me now. He’s standing with one hand braced against the desk, staring down at the documents like he’s trying to dismantle them with logic alone. “Adr

The Uncle’s History

Adrian POV The estate is quieter at night. Security lights stretch across the grounds like silent sentries. The guards rotate shifts every hour, their footsteps barely audible against the stone paths. Owen’s team has tightened surveillance again after the threat message. None of it feels excessive anymore. Not after what we’ve learned. I’m in the study reviewing Arclight’s acquisition trail when Lydia walks in. She doesn’t knock. She stopped doing that weeks ago. “You’re avoiding sleep again,” she says. I glance up from the documents. “You’re supposed to be resting.” “And you’re supposed to be honest.” I lean back slightly. “That’s an ambitious expectation.” She crosses the room and sits in the chair opposite my desk. The same chair she’s used for every difficult conversation we’ve had in this room. “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier,” she says. “Which part?” “About your uncle.” Of course. The story I avoided for years is no longer optional. “You want

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