All Chapters of My ex husband lost me to his rival : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

BLAKE POV"She's gone," Lorenzo said. "And now we have a problem."I looked up from the desk. "Keep quiet Lorenzo.""I've been quiet." He put the papers in front of me. "Blake. The clause activates today. The moment she walked out of this building it activated.”"Say it again," I said."The clause requires ongoing marriage with the same spouse." He didn't look at the papers. He has waited for this. "Or remarriage within sixty days. Plus conception within the first year of that remarriage.""And if neither”?"Controlling shares transfer to next of kin demonstrating superior stability." He paused. "That's the language. Superior stability."I looked at the window."Luciano.""Yes."The room was quiet."He's been building toward this," I said."He's been patient," Lorenzo said. "There's a difference."I looked at him. "How long have you known about this?"He held my gaze. "Long enough.""That's not an answer Lorenzo.""No." He stood up slowly. "It isn't." He picked up his jacket from the

LUCIANO POV"He chose you before Blake even knew your name."Olivia looked up from her coffee."Alexander ran a background check six months before the contract offer," I said. "He wasn't looking for a suitable wife for his son. He was looking for the specific person who could hold everything together while Blake demonstrated exactly why he shouldn't have it."She set her cup down. "He chose me because I would stay quiet.""He chose you because you were capable enough to make Blake look competent and smart enough not to demand credit for it." I looked at her directly. "There's a difference.""And you." Her eyes stayed on mine. "You knew this whole time.""I suspected. For years I suspected." I paused. "Knowing and proving are different things.""When did you know for certain?""The Singapore merger. I tracked the resolution back to its source. It wasn't Blake." I held her gaze. "It was never Blake."She was quiet for a moment."Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked."Because tellin

CHAPTER 26 The PetitionBlake Pov Forty-three pages to destroy the mother of my child.She thinks she can mess with me.Blake set the petition papers down.Picked up his coffee. Drank it standing. Put the cup back on the desk and sat down and picked the petition up again like maybe the words had rearranged themselves while he wasn't looking.They hadn't.Primary residential parent. Material change in circumstances. Demonstrated instability. Conflict of interest arising from romantic involvement with Luciano."The abandonment framing is our strongest entry point." Marcus Hale slid his copy across the table with two fingers. Eleven years of litigation and the man still handled paper like it was evidence. "The documented absence during the Nathaniel incident — a judge sees that and the rest of the filing writes itself.""She wasn't absent."Marcus looked up."She was in the building," Blake said."She was on the forty-second floor running a client meeting while her four year old son we

OLIVIA POVThey thought I was going to cry. I could see it in the way Blake's lawyer looked at me when I sat down. Her calm positioning. The soft opening question.The patient expression of a woman who had handled emotional witnesses before and knew exactly how to manage them.I let her think itMy lawyer leaned close to me"You ready?" she said quietly."Yes.""They might might ask about Luciano first. Just answer.Don't defend.""I know."She nodded and sat back."Ms. Bennett." Blake's lawyer opened her folder."Let's start with your current relationship with Luciano Sterling.""We're developing a relationship," I said. "It's new. It's built on mutual respect.""Define developing.""We have meals together. We talk. We're getting to know each other.""Has the relationship been physical?""No.""But you intend""I intend to get to know him." I held her gaze.She made a note. "And your marriage to Blake Sterling. Would you characterize it as?"Would you like me to tell you about my ma

BLAKE POVMy phone buzzed at midnight.She was still asleep..I watched her for a moment. Then I picked up my phone and slipped out and went to my home bar. I sat down and opened the report.Cayman Islands account. Shell company. Six years of monthly deposits coming in from a Sterling family discretionary fund.My father's fund.I scrolled down The same account had outgoing transfers. Eighteen months of payments going to a name I didn't recognize. The security chief had flagged it ,and it required further investigation.I picked up my phone and called him.He answered immediately."The outgoing transfers," I said quietly. "The name on the receiving end. How far back does the relationship go?""We're still tracing sir. What we have suggests the payments have been going on for a long time but we don't know the exact length yet. The amounts are irregular but the intervals suggest a pattern. Not random.""Meaning someone is being paid for what we don't know.""That's one reading, yes.""W