Boss, Your Ex-wife is Married to Your Rival의 모든 챕터: 챕터 11 - 챕터 20

Bianca: I'm only protecting you. That's what this is.Tristan stared at the message for a long moment before typing back.“Protecting me from what, exactly? A woman with no power, no company, no leverage against me?”“She's getting close to Zayden on purpose, Tristan. Think about it. Of all the companies in this city, she lands at his. She wants payback, and she's using his daughter to get it.”Tristan set the phone down on his desk, staring at it without picking it back up right away. Something about the accusation didn't sit right — it was too eager, too immediate, the way Bianca always seemed to have an explanation ready before he'd even finished forming the question himself.He picked the phone back up and called her instead of typing."You talk about her a lot," he said, the moment she answered, "for someone you keep telling me is irrelevant."A brief pause crackled on the line. "I'm just looking out for you.""You brought her up unprompted three times this week." He leaned back

Zayden made the call from his office with the door closed, voice low, deliberate."I need a background check on someone," he said. "Her name is Selene Whitmore, investigate quietly. Nothing that reaches HR, nothing that reaches her.""Any particular concern, sir?"Zayden glanced towards the glass wall separating his office from the floor beyond, where Selene sat at her desk, sunlight catching the edge of her hair as she worked through a stack of contracts without looking up once."Some irregularities came up in a conversation," he said carefully. "I want to understand them before I ask her about it directly. Not because I doubt her. Because I want to protect her, if there's something there worth protecting against.""Understood. I'll have something within the week."He hung up and sat with the decision a moment longer than he expected to, an unfamiliar discomfort settling into his chest. He told himself it was thoroughness, the same instinct that made him double-check every contract b

Selene arrived at the office early, rehearsing three different versions of how she'd act around Zayden that morning — professional, distant, unbothered — none of which she'd fully committed to by the time the elevator doors opened onto the executive floor.He was already at his desk when she passed his open door, sleeves rolled up, reading glasses low on his nose, exactly as unremarkable as any other morning."Morning," he said, not looking up. "I need your read on the Whitfield counterproposal before ten."That was it. No mention of the hallway, no lingering glance, nothing that acknowledged the words that had sat between them the night before.Selene set her bag down at her desk, oddly unsettled by how normal it all felt. She'd braced for tension, for careful distance, for something in his tone that would tell her he regretted saying it. Instead she got a counterproposal and a deadline, and somehow that steadiness unnerved her more than awkwardness would have.She pulled up the file

Tristan called Mercy General's records office from his car, parked outside his own building, unable to make himself walk in and start the day like nothing had shifted overnight."I need to request the full medical file for a patient," he said. "Selene Whitmore formerly Mrs Wolfe, I'm listed as next of kin on the original admission."The woman on the line put him on hold for several long minutes, hospital hold music looping thin and tinny through the speaker. When she came back, her tone had changed — it sounded apologetic."Sir, I'm seeing several gaps in the file from that admission period. The nursing notes and some lab work from the night in question. They appear to be missing from our digital records.""Missing," Tristan repeated. "Since when?""I can't say for certain. Our system would need a manual audit to trace when the documents were removed, if that's even possible this far out."Tristan thanked her and hung up, sitting in the quiet of his car with both hands still on the wh

Bianca had spent two years learning to read Tristan the way other people read weather patterns — small shifts that told her exactly what was coming before it arrived. Lately, the pattern had stopped making sense.She mentioned Selene's name over dinner that week, the way she always did, watching for the familiar tightening around his jaw, the reliable flicker of resentment she'd learned to steer towards herself years ago."I heard Laurent Group's sending her to Geneva," she said, cutting into her food without looking up. "Quite the promotion for someone who's only been there a few months."Tristan didn't tense. He didn't change the subject or reach for his wine the way he used to when her name came up."What was her recovery like?" he asked instead "After the miscarriage….specifically."Bianca's fork stilled halfway to her mouth. "Why does that matter now?""I'm asking a question.""You've never asked that before Tristan…and besides you were married to her weren't you?""Well I'm aski