Lahat ng Kabanata ng I Own Twenty Percent of My Ex Husband’s Company: Kabanata 101 - Kabanata 110

Marcus had been waiting for the right moment for weeks, though he'd been careful not to let that waiting show. He'd learned, over the course of their courtship, that Elara responded best to things that arrived naturally, without any sense of a clock running behind them.The moment came on a quiet Sunday afternoon in early autumn. After a long, unhurried lunch, they walked through a small park near Elara’s apartment, the cool air carrying the first real signs of the changing season. The leaves were beginning to turn, and she kept her coat pulled close around her, her cheeks flushed from the cold. She was laughing at one of his stories about his disastrous attempts at cooking, and he found himself noticing again how naturally she laughed these days, so different from the guarded woman he had first met at that gallery months earlier.They found a bench and sat down, the park was mostly empty around them."Can I say something? And I want you to know before I say it that there's no wrong a

Kael heard about Marcus’s proposal from Wren, who had heard it from Camille. Apparently, Elara had mentioned it to Camille herself during one of the rare times she had opened up about her personal life.He sat with the information one evening before the old, familiar panic began building in his chest.Marcus had asked her to be his, properly. And she had not said no.That single fact circled through Kael’s mind for days. The uncertainty of her answer felt worse than a clean rejection. It was an open question he had no way to influence, and no way to turn it in his favor, no matter how much he wanted to.He brought it to his next therapy session, the anxiety spilling out faster than he'd intended."I need to do something significant," he said, barely settling into his chair. "Something that shows her clearly, and without any doubt, exactly what she would be choosing if she chose me instead. Marcus asked her to commit to him, and I can't just sit here and let that happen without at leas

Kael brought the full weight of the failed restoration event to his next therapy session, the humiliation was still sitting raw and uncomfortable in his chest even several days later."You were right," he told Dr. Patel, without greeting. "Both of you were right, you and Julian. I did exactly what you warned me against, and it failed exactly the way you predicted it would.""How are you sitting with that now?" “I feel ashamed. But I also think I finally understand something I have been avoiding for months. I keep treating this like a problem I can solve if I just try hard enough or make it big enough. Buy the right gift. Plan the right event, prove to her clearly enough that I have changed. She told me plainly, standing in front of a crowd I invited specifically to watch my own humiliation, that none of that was ever what she needed.”"What do you think she actually needs?"Kael thought about the question seriously. He turned over everything he had learned in the past several months

Elara kept the book Kael had sent her for several evenings before she finally opened it. The simple act of starting the story felt, somehow, more important than it should have.She read the first chapter slowly. At first, she kept thinking about the fact that Kael had sent it to her. But as she continued reading, she gradually became absorbed in the story itself. She remembered what it had once felt like to get lost in a book, before the demands of her marriage had taken up so much of her attention and left little room for something that was simply for herself.She found herself thinking about Kael more often than she wanted to admit. But this time, she wasn’t thinking about him with the same anxiety and suspicion she had felt for most of the past year, questioning every gesture and wondering if there was a hidden motive behind it.Instead, she was thinking about him more calmly. She was noticing the small, consistent things he had been doing and slowly allowing herself to consider wh

Elara drove home from Marcus's apartment in a stunned, careful silence, the weight of the evening settling slowly over her as the city lights blurred past her windows.She had gone to dinner believing she could handle the conversation like she handled every difficult situation in her life now: stay calm, stay in control, say what needed to be said. She had expected herself to leave with the same steady confidence she had worked so hard to build.Instead, she had sat there really unsure of what she wanted, unable to give a clear and confident answer she had become so used to giving everyone else. The fact that she couldn’t give that answer felt uncomfortable, but it also felt strangely honest in a way she hadn't allowed herself to be in a long time.She let herself into her apartment and sat on her couch without turning on more than a single lamp.She thought about the past year of her life and everything she had done to become the woman she was now. She had worked hard to become someo