All Chapters of Ex-Husband Forgot Ever Divorcing Me: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

MONIQUEI slept in the guest room again.It had been a quiet decision, made without announcing it to anyone. The master bedroom still held too much of him—his scent in the sheets, the memory of his mouth, the shape of a night I had already lied about. The guest room felt safer. Smaller. Easier to lock.I made sure of that before I lay down.The key turned. The lock clicked. I tested the handle once, then again, before I finally let myself close my eyes.I woke in the middle of the night with the sudden, familiar need to pee.The room was dim. The only light came from the thin line of moon slipping through the curtains. My eyes were still blurry with sleep when I pushed myself up—and that was when I saw it.A man’s figure sat at the edge of the bed.For one raw second, terror ripped through me. A sound caught in my throat. My body went rigid, heart slamming so hard I felt it in my ears.Then the shape became familiar.Broad shoulders. The line of his back. The way he sat as if he had b

MONIQUEI grabbed at his shoulders.“Maxwell—”He pushed in.Not hard. Not careless. Just inexorable. Inch by inch, stretching me around him until I was shaking underneath him, mouth open on a sound that wasn’t quite a moan and wasn’t quite a sob. He bottomed out with a low, ragged breath against my cheek and held there, buried to the hilt, giving my body time to take him.“Monique.” My name came out like it hurt him. “God. You feel—”He didn’t finish.He started to move.Deep, measured strokes that dragged against every sensitive place inside me. The guest bed whispered under us, softer than the master bed, more intimate somehow because it was supposed to be the room he wasn’t allowed in. His hand found mine again and pressed it back into the pillow. His other hand slid under my thigh, lifting it, opening me so he could sink even deeper.“Ah—ah—Maxwell—slow—”“I am.” He kissed the tear that had slipped from the corner of my eye without my permission. “Feel that? Just this. Just you.”

ELISEThat was the truth I had never been allowed to say out loud.Ambrose was not Maxwell’s.He was Derrick’s.The only reason the boy looked so much like Maxwell was because they both carried the same man’s blood. Same jaw. Same eyes when he was angry. Same quiet stubbornness in the mouth. People saw Maxwell in him and called it proof. They never thought to look one generation higher.I knew.It was never supposed to happen.I had first come to the Lohr family at thirteen—young, displaced, folded into their house because there had been nowhere else for me to go. Derrick had barely been around then. He was a name in the hallway, a closed study door, a man whose presence filled a room even when he wasn’t in it. He did not become anything else to me until years later, when I was already a legal adult with a mind and a heart of my own.By then I had already loved Maxwell.That part was real.I loved the way he walked into a room as if the air itself made space for him. I loved the sharp

MONIQUEWe did shower together.I let it happen.I told myself I didn’t want to push him away. Not this morning. Not after waking up with the truth still wet on my cheeks and his arms already locked around me like the night had never ended. Fighting him would have required a kind of strength I didn’t have left. So I let him lead me into the guest bathroom, let the water run hot, let the glass door close behind us until the rest of the house disappeared into steam.The shower in this room was smaller than the one in the master suite. There was less space to pretend we weren’t touching. Water hit my shoulders first, then slid down my back in warm sheets. Maxwell stepped in behind me, taller, broader, the heat of him immediately closer than the spray.“Turn around,” he said quietly.I didn’t. I stayed facing the tiles, palms braced against the wall, and let him do what he had asked for in bed.He washed my back.His hands were careful at first. Soap. Slow circles over my shoulder blades.

MONIQUEWe went downstairs together.I had changed into another house dress, hair still damp from the shower, the skin of my neck hidden as best as I could manage. Maxwell walked beside me like nothing about the morning required shame. His hand rested at the small of my back the entire way down the stairs—light, guiding, unmistakably possessive.The moment we reached the first floor, I wanted to turn around.Cecil was already there.So were the three maids—Fei, Hannah, and Mira.All of them wore smiles.Not the polite kind they used for guests. The knowing kind. Warm. Barely contained. The kind of smiles that made my stomach drop.“Good morning, Miss Monique. Mr. Lohr,” Cecil said, her voice far too pleased. “Breakfast has been prepared. We had to reheat it because it went cold from waiting.”My ears burned.I wanted the floor to open and swallow me whole.Cold from waiting.Which meant they had been downstairs long enough to notice we hadn’t come out. Long enough, maybe, to hear the