All Chapters of The Rejected Wife Returns as a Billionaire Queen: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Crystals POV : THE LAURENT GALAShe walked away from him, from all of them That was the hardest thing Crystal had ever done.Harder than leaving the mansion at 3 AM with nothing but a sketchbook. Harder than walking into Laurent Fashion as the "temp girl" with bullies on every side. Harder than facing Luc Moreau across that boardroom table.Because every step away from Ethan Vale felt like tearing off a piece of her own skin.She could feel his eyes on her. Burning into herEven as she laughed at something a Hollywood actress said—she had no idea what—his gaze followed her across the ballroom like a compass needle pointing north.He's watching me, she thought. For the first time in a year, he's actually seeing me.I had prayed for this in my dreams for three hundred and sixty-five days. Now that I finally had it, it tasted like ash.A small, traitorous part of me felt a flicker of sad triumph. But that was quickly drowned out by a roar of cold, hard anger.She remembered everything.

Mark appeared in the doorway, a thick manila folder in his hands."The investigators delivered this an hour ago, sir." Mark's voice was gentle. "Everything they could find on Crystal Reed. And Crystal Laurent."Ethan's heart stopped."Leave it," he said.Mark set the folder on the desk and backed away. Ethan stared at the folder for a long time. He had faced down hostile takeovers and corporate raiders without flinching. He had signed billion-dollar deals with a steady hand.But this—this—terrified him.Because once he opened this folder, he couldn't unknow what was inside.He opened it.The first page was a photograph.A baby girl with violet-blue eyes, wrapped in a white blanket, smiling at the camera. Her parents stood behind her—Isabelle and Adrian Laurent, young and glowing and whole.The caption read: Crystal Amelia Laurent, age. Photographed three weeks before her kidnapping.Ethan's throat tightened.He turned the page.The next photograph was a police report. Yellowed, creas

The strategy was simple: I was going to flood her world with the things I had denied her.He started small.A single yellow tulip, delivered to her design studio on a Monday morning. No card. No signature. Just the flower, wrapped in brown paper, tied with simple twine.Ethan watched from across the street, hidden in the back of his town car, as the delivery boy walked into Laurent Fashion.Twenty minutes later, his inside source — a junior assistant named Rachel — sent a text.She looked at it. Then she handed it to an intern. 'Someone must have sent it to the wrong address,' she said.Ethan's jaw tightened.She knew it wasn't a wrong address.But he said nothing. He told himself it was fine. On Tuesday, He had a pack of rare, non-acidic coffee beans delivered to her home, specifically roasted to the temperature the maid had mentioned in her notebook, He sent it in a hand-carved porcelain cup with tulips painted on the very bottom—a secret only she would find once she finished her

Crystal’s POVFor an entire week, She played a game of shadows, watching him on the security feed, sitting in her lobby like a man waiting for a verdict. Every night, She would slipped out the back, leaving him to wait for a woman who no longer existed.She thought he would get the hint. She thought the "Ice King" would realize his time was worth more than a closed door.He'll give up eventually, she told herselfWell She was wrong.Ethan Vale never gives upAs her SUV approached the towering wrought-iron gates of the Laurent Estate, a figure stepped directly into the path of the vehicle."What the heck!" She exclaimed, lunging forward as the driver slammed on the brakes.There he was. Ethan stood bathed in the amber glow of the streetlights. He looked devastatingly handsome, but there was a raw, jagged edge to him I’d never seen. His suit was wrinkled, his hair windblown, and his eyes... they were fixed on the windshield as if he could see her soul through the tinted glass."I know y

The ballroom of the Laurent Fashion headquarters had been converted into a conference hall. Rows of chairs faced a stage with a podium and a massive screen. Every major investor in the European expansion was present—hedge fund managers, venture capitalists, representatives from private wealth firms.Crystal stood backstage with her parents, reviewing her notes., surrounded by her senior executives. Luc Moreau was there, still bitter, still watching her with narrowed eyes. Monique was there, now fiercely loyal. "The European expansion is our biggest initiative in a decade," Adrian said, his voice grave. "We've opened up forty percent of the company's shares to public investors to fund the new Paris atelier and the Milan flagship."The numbers flashed on the screen. Crystal had reviewed them a hundred times. The Laurent family still held 60% of the shares—controlling interest. The remaining 40% had been sold to a patchwork of institutional investors, private equity firms, and wealthy in