I Own Twenty Percent of My Ex Husband’s Company のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 61 - チャプター 70

Kael showed up at Serena’s apartment two days after the summit, and she almost didn’t let him in.She stood in her doorway for a long moment, studying him, taking in the exhausted, uncertain way he carried himself, it was so different from the composed, distracted man who’d stood beside her in that ballroom. At the same time, her entire future quietly fell apart in front of a room full of witnesses. She’d spent the two days since replaying every second of that night. The conversations about the wedding that he had repeatedly avoided suddenly made sense, so did his distracted silences. Even the draft message she had found in his email now felt different. What she had first seen as a small betrayal suddenly seemed like only the beginning of something much bigger, something she had been deliberately avoiding because she wasn’t ready to face what it might mean.“I need to talk to you,” Kael said. “Can I come in?”She let him in, mostly because, sometime during those two sleepless nights

The first time, Elara told herself it was a co-occurrence.The charity gala was a large event, the kind that drew hundreds of guests from across the industry, and it wasn’t especially strange that Kael might attend given his family’s longstanding involvement with the foundation hosting it. She spotted him across the room early in the evening, standing near a group of Sterling associates, and she felt a small, wary flicker of awareness before continuing with her own evening, refusing to let his presence disrupt the comfortable rhythm she’d built for herself over the past several weeks.He didn’t approach her. She noticed that, moving through her own conversations across the room, catching glimpses of him occasionally, always at a respectful distance, never close enough to require any kind of direct interaction. By the end of the evening, she’d almost convinced herself the whole thing meant nothing, simply two people whose professional circles happened to overlap at a large public event

Elara found herself telling Daniel about the music box almost against her better judgment. The two of them were sharing a quiet lunch at a small café near the office, a rare stretch of unhurried time between meetings.“He sent something last week,” she said, keeping her tone deliberately light and professional, the way she’d learned to discuss anything connected to Kael lately. “A gift. I had it returned without opening a conversation about it.”Daniel put down his fork, studying her carefully. Over the past few months, Elara had come to appreciate the kind of attention he gave to her whenever she needed to talk. “What kind of gift?”“Something personal. Something that brought back a memory from the early days of our marriage.” She shook her head slightly. "It doesn't matter what it was. What matters is that he's been showing up at events, sending things, clearly working toward something, and I refuse to fall back into managing his feelings about any of it again.""Is that what you th

One year before the divorceElara sat alone at the restaurant table, the candle between the two empty place settings burning down slowly; the waiter had already come by twice to ask, carefully and professionally, whether she was still expecting someone.She had made the reservation herself weeks earlier for their fourth anniversary. She had hoped the small, intimate dinner would feel like a real celebration rather than another obligation to fulfill.Kael had confirmed the plans that morning. He seemed distracted, but committed enough to make her believe he would actually come. Maybe foolishly, she had allowed herself a small flicker of hope that this year might be different.His text had arrived twenty minutes before their reservation.Something's come up. Can't make it tonight. I'll explain later.There was no apology attached, no suggestion of rescheduling. Just the bare-minimum message, delivered as quickly and casually as possible. It was the kind of message someone sent when the

Kael sat in his car outside the office building for a long time after Serena left. The silence of his car gave him the first real chance all day to sit alone and think about what had just happened. Serena’s words kept echoing in his mind: I used to think I was the woman you were building a life toward. Now I think I was just the woman standing in the doorway while you watched her leave.He turned the sentence over, feeling it land differently now that he was alone, without the pressure of needing to respond, without the instinct to deflect or soften what she'd said into something more comfortable for both of them to accept.He had denied it too quickly. He could see that now as he replayed his reaction in his mind. The moment Serena called him obsessed, he immediately rejected the word, almost as if he couldn’t stand to hear it. But deep down, some part of him had probably known for a while that the word fit.I’m not obsessed with Elara.He had said quickly and defensively. Now, sitt