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Lahat ng Kabanata ng THE WIFE HE THREW AWAY: My ex-husband's regret : Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

54 Kabanata

{ THE COST OF A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN'S PEACE }

KARLThe seventy-two-hour countdown I had shoved onto my design team spent the last three days chewing through my skull, driving me from boardrooms to emergency data reviews in a relentless sprint to reclaim our Western Market territory from George’s firm. By the time I finally threw the folder onto my mahogany desk and stepped out of the headquarters, the night was long past nine o'clock, and the marrow in my bones felt like dry ash. I hit the biometric scanner, forcing the double doors of the penthouse to click open, and immediately noticed a sudden, profound shift in the air. The rooms were pitch-black, silent, and entirely empty of the high-pitched laughter and cloying gardenia scent that had choked my entries for two weeks. There was no alcohol sitting out on the quartz counters, and no bass vibrating from the entertainment console. For the first time since the divorce, the space actually felt like my home again—the quiet, ordere

{ I NEED AN ANSWER, LEILA }

GEORGEI stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass panel of the executive gallery, my fingers curled loosely around the handle of my coffee mug. Below, the grand stone plaza was still slick from the remains of the midnight downpour, but the morning city noise was completely cut off by the thick panes. Through the blurred reflections, my gaze locked onto her figure the exact millisecond her boots cleared the transit vehicle's curb. She was walking toward the glass lobby doors, her dark hair pulled back into a neat knot, her grey dress simple and sharp as she held her portfolio bag flat against her side. I didn't look away. I registered, slightly after the fact, that my head had remained tilted toward the plaza far longer than a standard due diligence observation required. I turned back toward the inner corridor, a low-grade irritation at my own lack of discipline tightening the muscles behind my ribs. I thought back to the drive home the nig

{ YOU'VE BEEN SELECTED FOR THE NEXT PHASE }

LEILAThe early morning sun cut through the sheer blinds of my downtown hotel suite, casting thin, pale lines across the dark hardwood floor. I sat on the edge of the unmade bed, a rare, unhurried stillness wrapping around the room that felt entirely foreign after days of running against a digital clock. I didn't have to drive my boots into the slate floors of the G3 Group by eight-thirty. I had given George a real, verbal concession in the empty amphitheater yesterday afternoon, promising to step back from my terminal for a full twenty-four hours.As the quiet settled around me, my mind began tracing the variables of the last three weeks, shifting into an involuntary comparison I couldn't fully suppress. For two years under Karl’s surname, my existence had been an invisible cage. He had accepted my labor, hid my name from his board, and demanded my absolute compliance while treating me like a piece of property on his ledger.

{ YOU WON'T TAKE IT, GEORGE }

KARLThe folder on my desk was three inches thick, its white leather cover stamped with the blue shield of our architecture division. I flipped past the final pages, my eyes tracking the new lines my team had produced over the last three days. They had worked through three consecutive nights, the office running on a mix of panic and coffee, but the work on the pages was clean. I felt a real satisfaction in my chest. I had just seen my team pull itself across a massive gap through sheer force. The lines were sharp. The weight limits on the front wall had been completely rewritten, outshining the old designs we had been relying on for months. I leaned forward, tapping my internal intercom to talk to the entire design floor. "Finalize the compliance files on the downtown layout," I ordered, my voice flat and slow. "We are sending the new files to the investor network by eleven o'clock. The work is locked."I stood up, walking to the glass windows to look out at the morning sun hittin

{ ALONE WITH HIM }

LEILAMy hand moved across the desk, tracking the layout lines on my screen. My back ached from three hours of work, and a dull knot of pain was locking up the muscles near my left shoulder. I was running on empty. A heavy wave of hunger hit my ribs, but my stomach turned at the mere thought of ordering anything from the room service menu. The white plate near my mouse was completely bare; I had finished the last green apple two hours ago, and there was no way to replace the fruit at this hour of the night without walking three blocks into the downpour. Knock. Knock.The sudden sound cut through the quiet hum of my laptop fan. I went completely still in my chair before my mind could even calculate the distance to the door. It was the response I had carried since the night Karl stormed into my room. I stayed in the seat, my fingers freezing over the keyboard, certain he was the one standing at my door. I didn't move. I didn't breathe.The second knock came roughly two minutes la

{ I SLEPT IN HER ROOM }

GEORGE The update from our legal team about Karl’s move on our network stayed at the top of my screen, but the text failed to hold my focus all afternoon. The office floor was working under its standard hum, yet the open space felt unusually long today. Leila had taken the day off I pushed her toward. Her absence from her desk was a change that altered the whole building, making the silence near her space far more noticeable than I had expected. I caught my fingers hovering over my trackpad, pulling up her new Instagram profile on my screen. I looked a bit too long at the clear photo of her standing by her before closing the window with a sharp click. It was a repetitive habit, a small sign of how deeply she had lodged herself in my mind. By the time I reached my penthouse that evening, the restlessness had turned into a physical ache. I threw my jac

{ WAS SHE HIDING SOMETHING FROM ME? }

KARLIt was past ten o'clock at night. The office was silent, the floor below empty as the final details from our three-day push came together for the main expansion file. My eyes burned from the glare. My fingers moved across the glass screen with a heavy control, putting in the final codes for the Western Market Expansion bid before the investor group opened their session tomorrow morning. I was running on less than three hours of sleep, my posture stiff, the muscles behind my neck aching with a raw fatigue that left my focus entirely blunt. I didn't let myself linger. I locked the screen, pulled my jacket off the back of the chair, and walked out into the cool evening air, my mind completely drained of business before I even reached the garage. The lock clicked open with a quiet beep as I stepped through the penthouse front hall. The silence inside the space felt heavy, still, and entirely messy.&

{ I LIKED LAST NIGHT }

LEILA The morning sun was just beginning to cut through the blinds, casting thin lines across the floor, but my mind was stuck in the memory of last night. I couldn't explain the way my body had acted ahead of my thoughts. I had unlatched that door and let George cross my room without a single shred of the defensive wall I had spent days practicing. There had been no calculated hesitation, no repetition of our rules. I let out a slow breath, allowing myself to feel the raw weight of my gratitude without trying to hide it behind business excuses. He had arrived with the paper bag, the grilled chicken, and the fresh apples exactly when my body was running out of energy, though I never would have asked for his help. I was surprised at my own lack of defense. I had simply let him sit in my room, letting him see me completely unguarded, without a single mask to hide

{ I KNEW WHAT I WANTED TO SAY }

GEORGE I watched the door of my office click shut behind her, the quiet sound of her boots fading down the hallway. A small warmth lingered in my chest. She had admitted it plainly, her voice dropping into that quiet register right before she turned on her heel. She liked last night. I didn't let myself dwell on the words for long, though I wanted to hold the moment. The daily tasks of the Western Market Expansion project were already pulling at my attention, and the morning sun was cutting sharp lines across the dark floor. By eleven o'clock that morning, a notification from my computer signaled an incoming file. I tapped the screen, and her final plan layouts popped up across the glass surface of my desk. Every line on the design had been cleared, checked, and stamped under her name, Leila Stonne. I leaned back against the cushions of

{ OUR MOUTHS MET }

LEILA The air between us went still. The white lights of the open floor outside faded into the shadows of my office, leaving nothing but the sound of our breathing in the dark. I didn't pull back. I didn't slide my hands into my pockets, and I didn't move away from the edge of his boots. The joy of the win was still in my chest, a hot rush that made me close the remaining inches between us before my mind could build a defensive wall. Our mouths met. For one suspended second, neither of us moved. Just the warmth of his breath against my mouth, the small distance closing on its own, like something that had been delayed too many times already and refused to wait any longer. I leaned into him, my fingers reaching up to grip the fabric of his shirt. He didn't hesitate. His large hands slid around my waist, pulling my body flat against his chest until the space

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