Divorce Me I'm Done Serving You (Ayla and Troy) novel Chapter 845

That reluctance to let go probably didn't have much to do with love anymore. It was more about not wanting to lose someone who'd been part of her for so long. The kind of familiarity that no one else could replicate.

"Halle, are you listening?" Edgar's voice cut through when she didn't respond fast enough.

"Of course I am." Edgar had come back to Drakoria after the holidays to take over the family business. His time abroad had been partly for professional development and partly a cover for his relationship with Nina.

This year, the Bowmans had pushed hard for his return. He and Halle were both 25 now. Her career was taking off, and Edgar couldn't stay overseas forever. Not if they were supposed to get married.

Neither family knew about Nina or the two-year-old daughter. Edgar had kept them hidden well.

And Edgar didn't bother tiptoeing around Halle's feelings about it. She'd already found out on her own, and he knew perfectly well that as long as she hadn't formally called off the engagement, she was choosing to maintain the surface-level peace. She wouldn't use Nina and the child as ammunition.

He really did know her.

"Then get over here," Edgar said.

"I'm not a doctor. What am I supposed to do there?" Halle's tone was light, almost playful. "You're not going to ask me to apologize to her, are you?"

"You don't think you should?"

Halle hadn't planned on going. But if Edgar was going to push it like this, she wanted to see how this played out.

She wanted to know what Nina was actually after. The woman had been quiet for so long, and now out of nowhere she'd called to stake a claim on her man. Halle still couldn't get a full read on her angle.

"Fine. Wait for me."

It was already ten at night. Halle pulled off her pajamas and slipped into a black dress that fell past her knees. She let her curls hang loose down her back, spritzed on her favorite perfume, painted her lips red, and stepped into four-inch heels. She was already tall without them. In the shoes, she was pushing 5'11".

Striking, polished, magnetic. Halle loved every inch of what she saw in the mirror.

She grabbed her bag and walked out.

She'd barely cleared the front gate when she heard a bark. A little toy poodle was bouncing around on the road ahead, absurdly energetic. Behind it trailed a man who had to be close to 6'3".

Right. Halle had almost forgotten. James was her neighbor now.

James had a white toy poodle named Lemon. When he'd gone back to Zheron, he'd taken the dog with him, and in the six months since Halle had last seen it, the thing had ballooned.

Nina's face went even paler. The bitterness and resentment buried in her eyes deepened, but all she could show Edgar was an even more delicate, helpless expression.

The tension between the two women hit the instant their eyes met. An undercurrent sharp enough to cut.

Edgar glanced back at Nina to reassure her, then stepped into the hallway and looked Halle up and down. He seemed thrown off by how much bolder her style had gotten. In his memory, she was still the girl in a school uniform with that sweet, obedient smile. He frowned. "Did you really have to dress like that?"

Halle studied him right back.

Edgar had always been the warm, golden-boy type. Back in school, he was the kind of guy who made a uniform look effortlessly clean-cut. The handsome upperclassman with the gentle aura. He'd grown into it.

More masculine now, more presence, but still giving off that approachable first impression. Nothing like James, who practically broadcast old-money power from every pore.

Edgar was a bouquet of fresh flowers. James was a gemstone catching the light.

Different tastes for different people. Most women would gravitate toward James and all that effortless magnetism. Halle preferred something simpler. She'd always liked the clean, soft-spoken type, the kind of guy who felt like a younger brother even when he wasn't. Edgar had shaped that preference in her.

"I look perfectly normal." Halle glanced down at herself, then caught her reflection in the glossy hospital wall and admired her silhouette. Her eyes were full of nothing but satisfaction.