Todos os capítulos de I Own Twenty Percent of My Ex Husband’s Company: Capítulo 31 - Capítulo 40

Marcus Chen had learned a long time ago that the people worth paying attention to were rarely the loudest ones in the room.He had learned that lesson during his own marriage. He had spent three years married to a woman who constantly talked over him at dinner parties and business events. She always made herself the center of attention, while slowly destroying the confidence he had once had in himself.He rarely talked about that marriage anymore. It ended four years ago. On paper, the divorce had been simple, but emotionally, it had been much harder. For about a year afterward, Marcus struggled to trust his own judgment again, especially when he was around people who were confident and outspoken.Marcus noticed something about Elara that first evening at the gallery, even though he couldn’t explain exactly what it was. She was calm and well-mannered, but she didn’t seem completely comfortable. It was as if she had spent years being made to feel like she should stay quiet and not draw

The Meridian deal closed on a Thursday afternoon, and Elara sat in the small conference room with Daniel, Priya, and Tomas gathered around her laptop, watching the final confirmation email land in her inbox with a kind of disbelief that took a moment to fully process.It was real. Vale Capital had just completed its first major acquisition, a stake in a regional manufacturing company that Meridian Growth Partners had helped finance.Elara’s team had handled the entire deal from beginning to end, including the negotiations and final structure. This wasn’t a small consulting deal or a minor investment. It was a real acquisition backed by serious capital, the kind of deal that even much older firms would have been proud to complete.“We did it,” Priya said, staring at the screen like she needed to read the confirmation a second time to fully believe it. “We actually did it.”Tomas, usually the quietest of the three, let out a low whistle and leaned back in his chair, a rare, wide smile b

He crossed the room before he’d fully decided to, some part of him was already moving toward her while the rest of him was still weighing whether it was a good idea.Elara noticed him approaching before he reached her. However, she showed no outward reaction beyond a little natural pause in her conversation with the group around her, excusing herself politely to the people she’d been speaking with a moment before he arrived.“Elara.” Her name felt strange in his mouth, formal in a way it had never been between them before.“Kael.” She said it evenly, no particular weight attached to it, the same way she might greet a business acquaintance she hadn’t seen in a while.“You look well,” he said, and immediately realized how weak his words sounded, how little they actually captured about the composed, sharp, completely self-possessed woman standing in front of him.“I am well,” she said.The silence that followed stretched a beat too long, and Kael found himself scrambling for something el

Serena spent three days planning the trip. She wanted a long weekend away, somewhere quiet and beautiful. She hoped it would remind them both why they had come together in the first place, before the wedding delay, before the fight about the restaurant, before she started noticing the small, uncomfortable things she could no longer ignore.She booked a cabin upstate, the kind with a private hot tub and a view of the mountains, chose the dates carefully around his schedule, arranged for a chef to come cook them dinner the first night. She wanted it to feel effortless when she told him, a gift rather than a demand, something that might remind him, gently, of the ease they used to have together before things had gotten so complicated.She told him about it over dinner at her apartment, sliding the folder of confirmations across the table with a smile she’d practiced enough to make this moment feel almost natural.“I booked us a place upstate for next weekend, just the two of us. No famil

Julian had suggested the bar the way he always did when he could tell something was weighing heavily on his friend. There was no agenda, just a simple text: Drinks tonight. No excuses.Kael had shown up without much resistance, grateful for an excuse to leave the office and escape the quiet, oppressive weight of the house afterward.They sat at their usual corner table, two whiskeys already in, The talk stayed easy and familiar, the way it did with old friends, work complaints, a mutual acquaintance’s questionable new business venture, nothing that required either of them to say anything truly personal.It was Julian who finally pushed past the surface-level conversation; he set his glass down and studied Kael with the kind of patient, direct attention he’d been giving him for weeks now, ever since the night Kael had snapped at him in the office and immediately regretted it.“You’ve been somewhere else all night,” Julian said. “You’ve been somewhere else for months, honestly. I’m not