All Chapters of Five years later, My Billionaire Ex-husband wants me back: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Janet"Yes, Garrett," I said, my voice dropping into a deadly, quiet cadence that chilled the heated air between us. "Four. Gavin, Grayson, Grace, and Gabriella. Four lives that fought their way into the world without a single second of your help."Garrett stood utterly motionless. He didn't demand legal documents. He didn't threaten custody. He simply looked at me, stripped of all corporate armor, his hands trembling at his sides with a desperate, agonizing hunger for answers he knew he did not deserve."Tell me," he pleaded in a broken rasp, taking half a step forward before checking himself, keeping his distance as if approaching an unexploded shell. "Please, Janet. Just tell me."A bitter, humorless laugh tore from my throat."You want to know?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest, the sheer weight of five years of silence finally breaking. "I found out that morning. The exact morning your sister and Bianca staged their little play. I spent three hours at the clinic, holding

GarrettThe mahogany desk on the eightieth floor of Crawford Tower was covered in urgent operational dossiers, but the numbers blurred into meaningless ink.Transatlantic freight manifests, sovereign green-energy dividends, European retail allocations—none of it mattered. Every time I blinked, the vaulted lobby flashed behind my eyes: the little girl in the pink coat clutching her sketchbook, asking if I was her daddy; the fierce boy with wild curls; the tiny girl brandishing a river pebble; and Gavin, standing straight as a soldier, looking into my face with my own slate-gray eyes."We should petition for court-ordered paternity testing immediately," Marcus Hayes said, breaking the silence. He sat across from me with an open legal folio, his fountain pen uncapped. "A quadruplet birth five years after a high-profile divorce involving the Crawford estate creates severe liability issues. Before any trust provisions or estate revisions are contemplated, we need genomic confirmation.""No

JanetThe tires hummed against the damp coastal highway, cutting through the salt mist in heavy, rhythmic pulses.In the back of the station wagon, the silence had not returned. Instead, an electric, restless energy bounced between the four booster seats, punctuated by the rustle of crayon wrappers and the clicking of seatbelt buckles.I kept my eyes on the rearview mirror, watching Grace smooth the edges of her floral sketchbook with reverent, deliberate care."Grace, sweetheart," I began, keeping my voice gentle, level, and entirely devoid of reprimand. "About what you said back at the tea room... when you were saying goodbye."Grace looked up, her soft brown eyes wide and innocent. "When I hugged him?""Yes," I said, signaling a turn onto the bluffs road. "You don't have to call Garrett 'Daddy.' You don't have to use that word until you are much, much older and understand everything better. It’s okay to just call him Garrett, or Mr. Crawford, until you really know who he is."Grace

JanetThe thick cream envelope lay on the small table between us in the neutral meeting suite of Daniel’s attorney.There was no smirk on Garrett's face. No flash of corporate triumph, no vindicated gleam in his slate-gray eyes, and none of the dynastic arrogance I had braced myself to endure.Instead, he looked entirely undone. His eyes were red-rimmed, the dark shadows beneath them carved deep into pale skin, and his broad hands rested flat against his thighs, trembling with a quiet, suppressed tremor. He pushed the certified laboratory dossier toward me as if it were spun from brittle glass."Ninety-nine point nine nine percent," Garrett said softly, his voice rough and stripped of polish. "Across all four."I didn't open the folder. I didn't need a medical geneticist to tell me what I had carried beneath my ribs for thirty-four agonizing weeks."I know what the paper says, Garrett," I answered coolly, keeping my spine straight and my chin lifted. "The question is what you intend t

JanetThe emergency alert from St. Jude’s Bay Academy sent my car tearing down the coastal road so fast the gravel spit against the undercarriage.“Ms. Hale, an unregistered visitor claiming to be an immediate relative from the capital is demanding access to Kindergarten Cohort B. Campus security has detained her at the visitor gate.”My knuckles turned paper-white against the leather steering wheel. Cold, primal terror roared through my veins, drowning out the roar of the surf and the hum of the engine. Eleanor had found them. The woman who had treated my marriage like a personal insult and my existence like dirt on her ballroom slippers was standing at the gates where my children learned their alphabet.I slammed the brakes in the academy’s circular drive, cutting the engine as the car jerked to a violent stop.Stepping out onto the damp pavement, I caught sight of the figure standing by the ornamental wrought-iron gate.Eleanor Crawford.She wore an impeccably tailored charcoal cas