All Chapters of The Billionaire Behind My Divorce: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

THEODORETheodore stood behind the one-way observation wall. From here, he could see everything, and they could see nothing.It had seemed like a clever solution when he suggested it to the board that morning. A logistical preference, he had called it. The CEO was occupied elsewhere, and the directors were authorized to proceed.It was professional. It was neutral. But most importantly, it was safe.Theodore had spent the whole of last night trying to convince himself that he was ready to face the past. But this morning, as the seconds ticked by on the clock, each one tapped at the resolve he’d built over the night, like a nail tapping on glass. He had believed he could handle it.He was wrong.The doors to the Novaris conference hall were opened, and the representatives of the Connard-Rutherford Consortium entered one after another, their footsteps measured, confident, unaware that they were walking directly into a past they had buried.Theodore’s hand tightened behind his back as he

THEODOREThe breeze at Vermont Park carried the quiet sound of ordinary happiness.Children shouted somewhere near the swings. A dog barked in protest at nothing in particular. Leaves rustled overhead, sunlight softened by drifting clouds that refused to commit to full brightness.Theodore saw them before they saw him.He stopped walking.There she was.Alicia sat on a wooden bench, shoulders relaxed in a way he had never seen during their youth. The posture of a woman who had survived enough to treasure small moments of stillness.Her gaze followed a little boy racing across the grass with reckless joy.Tobey.Theodore knew immediately.He had seen the child once before at the restaurant, sitting across from Alicia. But here, in open space, laughing with strangers who became instant friends the way children allowed themselves to believe in the world, the resemblance was undeniable.The same eyes.The same softness.And Alicia watched him with a quiet, sacred peace only mothers seemed

THEODOREHe had known something was wrong the moment Alicia failed to appear at the meeting. He just hadn’t been able to ask why.The realization had not arrived as a thought so much as a disturbance - a subtle misalignment he felt the moment everyone had settled in the conference room below.From behind the one-way observation glass, Theodore watched the room assemble piece by piece, each arrival sharpening his awareness.Levi Connard walked in with the composed confidence of a man accustomed to control, his expression neutral but deliberate, already measuring the terrain. Beside him came Dr. Rutherford, severe and unreadable, followed closely by Liam Rutherford and two senior officers Theodore didn’t recognize.Seeing the familiar faces sent a faint tension across Theodore’s shoulders before he was conscious of it. His hand drifted toward his wrist in an old, reflexive motion, fingers brushing skin where restraints had once rested day after day. The absence was registered a moment l

ALICIAAlicia’s grip tightened around the strap of her bag before she even realized she was holding it.“Yes, ma’am,” The receptionist said again, voice softened with the gentleness reserved for bad news delivered to strangers. “Tobey was picked up earlier.”The hallway behind her buzzed with children being collected. Laughter, backpacks rustling, teachers calling names, all the sounds seemed to retreat from her, swallowed by a sudden ringing silence.“By who?” she asked.The question came out steadier than she felt.A brief pause followed as the receptionist looked at her screen and then back up at Alicia.Cautiously, she said. “Mrs. Rita Rutherford.”The name slid into Alicia’s chest like ice. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe.Her mother, of all people.The world tilted slightly. The noise of departing students blurred into distant static, as if she stood underwater watching life continue somewhere far above her head.She forced a polite nod she did not feel, murmured a than

THEODORETheodore sat behind the wheel of his Lincoln Nautilus with the engine running low and quiet beneath him, the dashboard casting a dim blue glow across his face while rainwater gathered lazily along the windshield.The Rutherford estate stood beyond the iron gates like something carved out of arrogance itself; sprawling, illuminated, untouchable. From the outside, it looked elegant enough to belong on magazine covers. It was the rot beneath it that people rarely captured.His vehicle remained tucked beneath the shadow of an overgrown jacaranda tree just beyond the eastern perimeter wall, positioned precisely where the estate’s rotating CCTV pattern overlapped into a six-second blind spot every forty-eight seconds. Years ago, Theodore had learned to survive by studying systems until he could see the flaws hidden inside them.Tonight was no different.One hand rested loosely against the steering wheel while the other tapped slowly against the leather armrest, not with impatience,