Todos os capítulos de Ex-Husband Forgot Ever Divorcing Me: Capítulo 61 - Capítulo 70

MONIQUEThe weekend passed too quickly.Monday arrived with the pale, ordinary light of a workday, and for the first time in a long time I had somewhere I was supposed to be that did not belong to Maxwell Lohr. I dressed with more care than I wanted to admit—soft blouse, tailored slacks that still fit, a blazer that made me look like the woman I used to be before I became someone’s wife, someone’s ex, someone’s secret.Maxwell did not take it well.He had been against it from the moment he understood I was going back to St. Claire. Pregnant, he said. She shouldn’t work. The words came out of him like law, not concern. By Sunday night the concern had already curdled into anger.“You’re carrying my child,” he said, standing in the doorway of the guest room as if that fact alone settled the argument. “You should be resting. Not running to a clinic to exhaust yourself.”“I’m eleven weeks,” I told him. “Not dying.”His jaw flexed. “I don’t care how many weeks it is. You’re not doing this.”

MAXWELLI couldn’t believe it.She had looked me in the eye and reduced me to a last name.Not a husband. Not even an ex-husband trying to take responsibility. A man sitting on Lohr money because he could no longer remember how to earn it. A burden. That was what she made me sound like. As if the only thing I still had was privilege, and as if providing for her and the baby was an insult she had to escape by walking into an office.It hit my ego as a man first.Hard.I was supposed to be the one who brought money to the table. I was supposed to be the reason she didn’t have to stand on swollen feet and argue with children about their nightmares while carrying mine. Husband. Ex-husband. The title didn’t change the instinct. She was pregnant. The child was mine. That made her my responsibility whether she wanted the word or not.What if the stress killed the unborn child?The thought arrived and refused to leave. I saw her walking out with that blazer on, pale from mornings spent sick,

ELISEI noticed it all day.Ambrose had been too behaved. Too quiet. No tantrum when the spoon was the wrong color. No shouting when the nanny told him to sit still. Not even that morning, when Trevor swabbed the inside of his cheek and Maxwell stood there like a stranger wearing his father’s face. My son had only looked small and obedient, as if being good might make the room less frightening.I guessed he still did not understand what was going on.He was three. He could not know what a paternity test meant. He could not know why Daddy had left without another word, or why Mommy’s voice kept breaking behind closed doors. He only knew the house had changed, and that the people who used to play with him had started walking past him instead.His birthday was coming soon.That was why I went to his room that night. I told myself I wanted to talk to him. To check on him. To be his mother.The truth was uglier.I needed to influence him.If Derrick handled the test the way he promised, if

MONIQUEMaxwell was already gone when I woke.The other side of the bed was empty, the sheet cool, the faint indent of him already fading. For a second I thought I had dreamed the ride home, the argument in the car, the way he had looked at me and said I still needed someone. Then the guest-room door opened and he was there anyway—fully dressed, dark suit sharp against the morning, the smell of cologne already set like armor.As if it were his first day at work.As if diligence itself could answer every insult I had thrown at him.He crossed the room before I could sit up properly. I opened my eyes and found him already leaning down, already too close, already decided.He kissed my forehead.Soft. Brief. As if I had asked for it.I hadn’t.“Eat,” he said against my hair. “Ross will take you.”Then he was gone, leaving the kiss behind like a claim I had not signed.I had a light breakfast. Toast. Tea. Fruit I could keep down. Cecil watched me with that same knowing warmth from the day

MONIQUEI scheduled the therapy sessions first.That was the only order that made sense. Not the argument. Not the blame Elise had thrown across my desk. Not the way Ambrose had flinched when her voice rose. The work came first, because if I let the personal part of this appointment run the room, I would stop being his doctor and become the woman she had come here to punish.I had to be careful with a three-year-old.Every question, every note, every next date on the calendar had to be built around his age. He could not sit through adult conflict and call it treatment. He could not be asked to choose sides in language he did not own yet. I needed time with him that was not filtered entirely through Elise’s mouth.And I had to know, for myself, whether everything she was saying was the truth.Of course I had to.A child crying through the night was one thing. A child becoming quiet after losing a father’s attention was another. A nanny’s report that he hurt himself when no one was watc