All Chapters of My Ex-Husband's Enemy Loved Me better: A Hockey Rival Romanc: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Elena's POVThe photos were everywhere by Monday morning.I saw them first on my phone when I woke up at six and made the mistake of opening the news app I had downloaded out of habit. There we were, Alexander and I, splashed across every entertainment and sports page in the country. Some shots were from the front, the moment he offered me his arm others were from the side, the two of us walking together through the press line. And then there was the one that had been shared the most.Alexander looking at me and smiling. I stared at that photo for a long time because even I had to admit, looking at it from the outside, it looked real. It looked like a man looking at a woman he actually wanted to be standing next to.The headline beneath it read: Alexander St. James Steps Out With Mystery Woman. Who Is She?I put my phone face down on the mattress and lay back and stared at the ceiling, it has started. Rachel arrived at half past eight with coffee, a breakfast delivery, and a calm effic

Elena's POV I did not sleep just lay in the dark with the city glowing faintly through the curtains and I turned Alexander's words over and over in my mind until they stopped sounding like words and started sounding like the ground shifting beneath everything I thought I understood. His brother Daniel dead. And Damien was the reason. He had not said more than that. After he told me there was a long silence and then he said quietly that it was late and we would talk more when the time was right. The way he said it was not a deflection. It was the voice of someone who had just handed over something heavy and needed a moment before they could hand over more. What exactly had Damien done? How had it happened? How long ago? And why had Alexander waited this long? The questions piled on top of each other until I gave up on sleep entirely and went to sit by the window with a glass of water and watch the city instead. I thought about Damien about the years I had spent beside him. About

Elena's POV Three days after the envelope, Damien's lawyers filed a motion to freeze my personal assets pending the divorce proceedings. There was only one problem. I had no personal assets everything I had technically belonged to Damien anyway. My own small savings account, the one I had quietly opened myself using leftover grocery money over many months, had just barely enough in it to be not worth their time. Everything else had always been his. Patricia Cole called me while I was eating breakfast. "It is a pure pressure tactic," she said. "He is trying to remind you that you have nothing of your own out there. He wants you scared and dependent on him." "I know exactly what he is doing," I said. "Good. We will file a counter-motion today. I also want to formally enter the affair evidence into the proceedings at the same time. The ultrasound photo you kept that changes the entire financial conversation significantly in your favor." "Do it," I said without hesitation.

Elena's pov Alexander was at my door in eight minutes. I opened the door and he was there, still in the same clothes from the gala, his jacket gone now, his sleeves pushed up, his gray eyes moving over me the second the door swung open the way they always did when he was doing a quick damage assessment. "Are you alright?" he asked. "No," I said honestly. "Not really." He came inside, moved through the small entryway and into the living room and then he turned and looked at me standing in the middle of it. He said very quietly, "Tell me exactly what Patricia told you." So I did. Word for word. The mental unfitness claim. The erratic behavior language. The pregnancy being used as evidence against me. All of it. He listened without interrupting once. His face stayed completely still the entire time, the way it always did when he was processing something serious, but his jaw was tight and his eyes were doing something I had not seen in them before. Something hot and controll

Elena's POV He came around seven, this time we didn't go to a restaurant. He just drove us to a small private rooftop space above one of his sponsor buildings, the kind of place that was not listed anywhere and required a key card to access and had a view of the city that made you feel like the whole world was very far below you and very small. There was a table set up with food already on it. Simple food nothing elaborate. Bread and soup and two glasses of water. Like someone had thought about what a person actually needed and not about what looked impressive. I sat down across from him and looked at the food and then looked at him. "You had this prepared," I said. "I thought it might be easier to talk somewhere with no one around," he said. "Easier for who?""For both of us." I picked up a piece of bread because I genuinely had not eaten properly all day and I looked at him across the table and said, "Tell me then. You said you have things that you have been keeping back." H