After I Stopped Loving Him (Isabella and Ethan) novel Chapter 179

No matter what, Ethan was only trying to protect her, and that thought made Natalie feel a little better. Still, his strange mood today unsettled her. For a moment, she wondered if Ethan had really fallen for Isabella.

After Natalie left, Ethan unwrapped the tissue and stared at the strands of hair inside for a long time. He didn’t move, just held them there in his palm before wrapping them up again and setting them aside.

His phone rang. Ethan glanced at the screen and picked up. It was the private investigator he had hired to dig into Isabella’s past, the second agency, just to be sure.

“Mr. Adams, we didn’t find anything odd about your wife,” the investigator reported. “Before she married you, her life was pretty routine. Home, work, her friend’s place, that’s about it. Sometimes she went shopping with her best friend, but that’s all. We checked out her friend too, and there’s nothing suspicious there either. I’ll send you the details in a bit.”

Ethan felt a wave of relief, one he couldn’t quite explain. No red flags. He’d thought so. Who would dare scheme against him, anyway? There was no conspiracy. Isabella was still Isabella. If she seemed different now, it was probably because he’d hurt her. Maybe this coldness was just the fallout from everything he’d done.

“Alright, thanks. I understand.” Ethan ended the call. A few moments later, a message popped up with the full report attached.

He opened the file and read through it carefully, twice, then a third time. Nothing jumped out at him. There really wasn’t anything unusual.

His phone rang again. This time, it was Keith, his assistant. Ethan had asked him to pull the security footage from the Cabinda Hotel from last night.

“Mr. Adams, I have the video. Would you like me to send it to you, or do you want to come in and watch it here?”

He let out a quiet, bitter laugh. He wasn’t sure why. For a moment, he just sat there, staring at the tissue-wrapped hair on his desk. Should he still go through with the DNA test?

He remembered how both Jordan and Natalie kept saying Isabella had changed. They even hinted that the real Isabella might be gone, and the woman now living with him was a fake.

Fine. He’d do the test. He’d pay extra for a rush job and get the results within a few hours. Once he had proof, the next time Jordan or Natalie tried to convince him Isabella was an imposter, he could show them the truth and shut them up for good.

With that, Ethan grabbed the tissue, stood up, and headed upstairs to the guest room where Isabella was staying. The door wasn’t locked. Maybe Isabella thought there was nothing worth stealing, or maybe she just knew that in his house, a lock wouldn’t keep him out anyway.