All Chapters of My Ex-husband Wanted My Money, The Billionaire Wanted Me : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

ELENA The drive back to the Adrian's house passed in silence....not the comfortable kind, but the sort that made every mile feel heavier than the last.I kept my eyes on the window, watching the scenery blur past while my mind circled back to what happened at his grandparents home.I'd already promised myself I wouldn't ask. This was a contract, not a marriage. I wasn't his confidante, and I had more than enough of my own weight to carry without borrowing his.Beside me, Adrian had already retreated into his laptop, a dozen documents open across the screen, his phone lighting up beside him every few seconds. He typed, stopped, read something on the phone, and his jaw tightened in a way that had nothing to do with irritation. Something colder sat behind his expression now.Does this man ever stop working long enough to breathe?I decided to try anyway. "It was nice meeting your grandparents."A grunt."That was rude."Nothing.I let it go for a few seconds, then tried again. "It was e

ADRIANI stared at Betty for a beat too long before the question fully registered. Daniel Bennett, standing in my building, asking for me by name. I'd never called him. Never so much as agreed to a meeting, let alone extended the courtesy of walking him past the lobby."Who the hell invited him?" Edward beat me to the question, looking just as irritated as I felt."No one.""Did you call him?"I gave him a flat look. "Obviously not.""Then what's he doing here?""That," I said, "is exactly what I'd like to know."Edward glanced at Betty. "Let him in."I raised an eyebrow at him."If he's bold enough to walk into Blackwood Groups uninvited," he said, shrugging, "let's hear what he thinks he's owed.""Fine."A few minutes later, the door opened and Daniel stepped inside, a greasy smile already fixed in place."Mr. Blackwood.""Mr. Bennett.""A pleasure to finally meet you in person.""I doubt that." His smile faltered for half a second before he recovered it. "Skip the pleasantries. Wha

ELENAI smiled at the mess covering my desk.... practice questions scattered across three different pages, a notebook filled nearly to the margins, the same chapter on organic reactions and anatomy I'd already gone through twice because the second pass had felt like understanding instead of memorizing. The entrance exam sat weeks away now, close enough to matter, and somehow the closeness didn't frighten me the way it should have, I missed the thrill of studying for an exam.I'd spent years convincing myself this dream belonged to someone younger.... a version of me who hadn't met Daniel, who still believed her life would unfold exactly the way she'd sketched it out. I'd been wrong about that. The dream hadn't disappeared. It had only been buried under eight years of someone else's plans, and now I was the one doing the digging.I picked the pen back up and returned to the questions, until twenty minutes later a particularly stubborn one earned a groan out loud."Organic chemistry wou

ELENA I had been avoiding Adrian for weeks now. Whenever his footsteps sounded somewhere in the house, I found something urgent to do elsewhere. Whenever he entered a room, I found a reason to leave it.It's been weeks since Elias's panic attack. Since Adrian had looked at me with that cold, protective fury and said the words I couldn't shake loose from my head. I understood what he'd been protecting. That understanding didn't make the sting any smaller....he had no idea how much weight that single word carried for me too, or what it had cost me to hear it spat back at me like adding salt to an open wound.Strangely, Elias had only drawn closer since then. He trailed after me more, sat beside me while I studied, sometimes settling near me without doing anything at all beyond existing in the same room. I didn't understand why. I wasn't against it, either.... not with my entrance exam looming the next morning and every ounce of company helping keep the panic at bay.By midnight, my eye

ELENASophia.The name kept looping through my head, over and over, until I couldn't hear anything else. I couldn't move. I just stood there, staring at the woman walking away from me....her face, her hair, the particular way she carried herself. There was no mistaking it. My former best friend, the woman who'd smiled at me for years while quietly helping tear my life apart behind my back.She hadn't recognized me. It took a second before I understood why... the ridiculous face paint Elias had insisted on earlier, some swirling design covering my entire face. Thank God for that, at least.But something else had already pulled my attention past the relief.Sophia stopped a few feet from a man standing near one of the food stalls, and my heart seized before I'd even properly registered why. From that distance I couldn't see his face clearly, but the build, the dark hair, the way he stood.... it was enough to twist my stomach into a knot.It was Daniel.I watched her close the distance t