All Chapters of Divorced After One Night: The Plus-Size Ex-Wife’s Revenge: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

The apartment felt different when we finally came home, quieter in a way that had nothing to do with sound and everything to do with the weight of what had changed inside it.Daxton carried the car seat up the two flights of stairs while I followed slowly behind, I was still moving carefully because my body was sore from giving birth three days ago. Every step reminded me of muscles I never knew I had.He gently placed Rowan’s car seat in the middle of our small living room, right beside the crib we had built together weeks earlier. For a moment, we both stood there, quietly watching him sleep, he had no idea how much his arrival had already changed our lives."Welcome home," Daxton said softly, more to Rowan than to either of us.He stayed a few hours that first evening, helping me figure out the practical logistics I hadn't fully thought through until they were suddenly, urgently necessary. How to prop myself up comfortably enough to nurse. Where to keep diapers within reach for m

Sloane noticed it first in small, forgettable moments, the kind she used to be able to explain away without a second thought.Jason almost said the wrong name once, months into the marriage, catching himself halfway through a syllable at a dinner party while introducing her to a business associate, covering the stumble so smoothly that nobody else at the table seemed to notice. Sloane noticed, she'd spent her whole life noticing the small things other people missed, and she filed it away without comment, telling herself it meant nothing, that men misspoke sometimes, that marriages had awkward moments that didn't mean anything larger.It happened again a few weeks later, differently this time. They'd been discussing summer travel plans, tossing around cities, and she'd mentioned, offhand, a restaurant she'd read about that specialized in some kind of Italian tasting menu, and Jason had gone quiet for a beat too long before responding, something tight in his jaw that hadn't been there

Peggy had been quieter than usual for weeks, and I'd noticed it without letting myself ask, the way you notice a friend pulling away and tell yourself it's not your business to push.It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon at the diner, the lunch rush was already over when I found her in the back office,the books were spread out in front of her, and her reading glasses were pushed up on her forehead, she rubbed her eyes, looking more exhausted than focused."You okay?" I asked, leaning against the doorframe, Rowan asleep in the carrier against my chest.She looked up, startled, and closed the ledger a little too quickly."Fine," she said. "Just numbers. You know how it is."I didn’t push, I had my own numbers to worry about, my own anxious calculations constantly running through the back of my mind. More than most people, I understood the exhaustion of staring at a column of numbers and realizing they simply didn’t add up the way you needed them to.It wasn't until later that week, restockin

I didn't go back to the diner the next day, and I didn't hear from Peggy either, the silence between us sitting heavy in a way that felt worse, somehow, than an argument would have.I spent the morning at the co-working desk instead, Rowan in his carrier beside me, trying to focus on a contract review for a new client and failing more often than I succeeded, my mind circling back, over and over, to the article, to Peggy's face crumpling in that empty diner, and the frightening question of whether this had brought anyone searching for me closer to finding me.Daxton noticed something was wrong almost the moment he sat down across from me."You okay?" he asked, setting his coffee down. "You look like you didn't sleep.""I didn't, much.""Rowan keeping you up?""Something like that," I said, which wasn't a lie exactly, just not the whole truth either, and he studied me for a moment like he could tell there was more to it, though he didn't push.I hadn't told him about the article or Pegg

Daxton called me the next morning, earlier than usual, and something in his tone the second I picked up told me the careful timeline Marcus had given me had just run out faster than either of us expected."Can you come by the office," he said. "This afternoon, if you can manage it. I need to talk to you about something.""Is everything okay?""I think we should just talk in person," he said, which wasn't an answer, and my stomach dropped straight through the floor.I spent the hours before our meeting feeling constantly anxious. I dropped Rowan off with Dana, who had come to help for a few days because I needed the extra support, then I kept going over in my head what I might say if the meeting turned out to be the conversation I was afraid of.The office felt different when I walked in that afternoon.....it seemed quieter than usual, although maybe my nerves were making everything feel that way.Daxton was waiting for me in a small conference room instead of at his usual desk, the m