All Chapters of I Came Back To Make my Ex-Husband Pay: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Cassian didn’t go home after he signed the contract. He went to his father. The Devereaux estate sat forty minutes outside the city. Cassian made it in twenty-eight minutes. He didn’t call ahead. He never did anymore. Showing up unannounced was the only way to catch his father before the old man decided what version of himself to perform. He found him in the study, a glass of scotch already half gone at nine forty in the morning. “You look like hell,” his father said, without looking up. “I need to ask you something.” “About the Voss contract? I heard. Three hundred million for a partnership with a woman nobody’s ever heard of.” “Not about the contract.” That got his attention. “Then what?” Cassian set the photograph on the desk. “Seraphina Voss.” His father glanced at it for exactly one second before looking back at his son. “What about her?” “You know her?” “I know of the Voss family. Old money, quiet money. Never made a public fuss about anything.” “Tha

The celebration dinner was Devereaux Holdings’ idea, a small gathering for both boards and a handful of major investors, now that the cameras were gone. Seraphina knew skipping it would cost her a chance to get under Cassian’s skin, so she went. The private dining room was dimly lit, with far better wine than the occasion required. She didn’t understand the lighting. This was a partnership dinner, not a date where ambience was meant to improve someone’s odds with a person they found attractive. She recognized most of the faces from the press conference, minus the cameras, plus a few investors circling the room the way investors always did, looking for whoever seemed most worth flattering. One of them found Cassian before the appetizers had even cleared. She was younger than the rest of the room, in a red dress cut to draw exactly the kind of attention it was drawing, her entire chest was on display and if you leaned in close enough you could see a hint of her areola. The vi

Seraphina Voss, CEO of Voss Holdings, terror of boardrooms, current aspiring architect of a man’s downfall, sat on her kitchen counter at nine on a Saturday morning, eating cereal straight out of the box because she couldn’t be bothered to find a bowl. Contrary to what society might believe, she preferred cereal that came in sachets, so she could dump the milk in and eat on the go rather than deal with dishes after. She hated doing dishes. The television was on low, some baking competition she wasn’t really watching, her hair piled in a knot that would have horrified her assistant if anyone from the office ever saw it. She thought about the red dress anyway. She hated that she thought about the red dress. “A different look from your usual office dressing,” he’d said. He’d probably meant it to irk her, but she’d spent five years building a closet of sharp, colorless armor, black, navy, the occasional cream when she wanted to look softer than she was. It had never occurred to her th

Cassian noticed that there was something different about Seraphina Voss the moment she walked into the room."That's new," he said.Seraphina set her folder down at her usual seat. "What is?""The blazer." He tilted his head slightly, studying her with open curiosity. "Burgundy. Bold for a Tuesday.""I own more than one color, Mr. Devereaux.""Could have fooled me. I've catalogued at least four black jackets and one very aggressive navy in the weeks I've known you.""You've catalogued my wardrobe.""I notice things." He leaned back in his chair, entirely too pleased with himself. "It's a useful habit.."“Maybe you should turn that habit towards. Not blazers.”"I contain multitudes."Seraphina fought the smile threatening to show itself before she reached for her folder and pretended to be occupied with the agenda instead. "Are we discussing the quarterly integration report, or my closet?""Can it not be both?""No.""Shame. The closet conversation was more interesting." He opened his

Seraphina had been going through Bellamy’s operational reports for three hours when her ops director knocked and let herself in without waiting for an answer.“You need to see this.”“I need coffee more.”“You need to see this first.”Seraphina set her pen down and held out her hand for the folder. She scanned the first page, then the second, then went back to the first because she was certain she had misread it.“This is the terminal contract.”“The one attached to the cargo facility, yes.”“I read this before I closed the deal.”“You read the acquisition terms. This is the operational file. Nobody pulls the operational file until after close. That’s standard.”Seraphina kept reading. The terminal wasn’t just valuable because of the shipping lanes it touched. It was valuable because of exactly which lanes, the ones Devereaux Holdings had spent two years building an expansion plan around. Contracts were already signed downstream. Clients had already been promised delivery windows that