Alle Kapitel von I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON: Kapitel 31 – Kapitel 40

THALIACatherine Langford.My stomach dropped.Not excitement or dread.Something heavier.Like my body knew this wasn’t going to be simple.I stared at her name longer than I should have.She went to Singapore with Mr. Langford earlier this year.Even before she traveled, Cathrine was the best.She treated me so well before I got married to her son and even better after.She loved me openly and easily, like I was the daughter she never had.And I had let myself love her.That 's the problem now.Because I didn’t know what she knew.I had no idea if Brandon had told her about the divorce or not…maybe that was why she was calling me.My thumb hovered over the screen, exhaled, and then answered.“Hello, ma’am…”“Thalia, my dear!”Her voice came through bright, warm, and exactly the same.And it hit me harder than I expected.“How are you?”I leaned back against the wall, like I needed something solid behind me.“I’m fine,” I said.Too quickly.Then, softer—“I’ve missed you.”“I’ve miss

THALIABrandon gave a short scoff beside me, the sound low and dry, as though my anger was something he found mildly inconvenient rather than justified, and it made my frustration spike all over again.“What exactly are you talking about?” he asked, leaning back into the leather seat as if we were discussing something trivial instead of the mess between us.I turned to stare at him in disbelief, feeling the weight of everything that had just happened with his mother still pressing on my chest like an invisible hand.The inside of the car was dim, and his driver sat in front with both hands resting on the wheel, eyes fixed ahead, pretending with impressive discipline that the tension in the backseat did not exist at all.I let out a breath that felt sharp enough to cut my own throat and folded my arms tightly across my chest, trying to hold myself together before I said something I could not take back.“Why did we have to pretend like we were some happy couple in front of your mother?”

BRANDONFor several long moments after Thalia slammed the car door behind her and disappeared into the night, I stayed seated in the backseat without moving. It felt like the air inside the car changed the moment she stepped out.I only noticed the sting on my lower lip when I raised my hand, and the faint trace of blood on my fingers made me pause as I realized Thalia had actually bitten me.I leaned into the seat and exhaled slowly, trying to steady my thoughts.The kiss wasn’t planned. It wasn’t something I thought through. It just happened, and that was exactly what bothered me.I don’t lose control like that.Yet with her, I did. Which was… strange.Her words came back to me clearly, the way she said she didn’t feel anything for me anymore, the way she spoke about paying the money and leaving as though she had already decided her next step.My jaw tightened slightly at the memory.She wasn’t just angry. She meant it.The driver cleared his throat softly from the front seat, pull

BAILEYI stormed out of that house with my jaw clenched so tightly it actually hurt.“Ridiculous,” I muttered under my breath, my heels striking the pavement harder than necessary as I stepped outside. “Absolutely ridiculous.”That woman had just thrown me out.Me.I let out a sharp, humorless laugh, dragging a hand through my hair as anger simmered beneath my skin.All I needed was a stupid recommendation letter.Just one letter to fix everything.It wasn’t like I even cared about the academic side of things. I had already skipped half the classes I was supposed to attend, barely showed up for the ones I couldn’t avoid, and my grades were hanging by a thread. If I didn’t secure access to the IRCL, my final thesis was as good as dead—and with it, my graduation. And my parents are going to have my head if I don’t make it to graduation.And there was no way I was letting that happen.I had walked into that house fully expecting it to be handled within minutes. I had made it very clear w

BRANDONThe numbers in front of me refused to make sense, no matter how many times I reviewed them or how carefully I traced every line of calculation back to its source.I leaned back slightly in my chair, my eyes fixed on the report spread across my desk as though prolonged scrutiny alone might force the inconsistencies to reveal themselves. The projections were clean, the structure was precise, and yet the conclusion sitting at the bottom of the page remained absurd.A two hundred percent increase.I exhaled slowly, dragging a hand over my jaw as irritation settled deeper beneath my skin. Nothing in the data justified that kind of escalation, and the more I examined it, the more obvious it became that something fundamental was missing.Not something.Someone.The realization came quietly, but once it surfaced, it refused to leave.Thalia.Before she left, the system had run with an efficiency I had taken for granted. There had been no unexplained spikes, no hidden losses buried b