Ex Wife's Collapse After Divorce novel Chapter 3

Ethan stared at her. What caught him off guard was the smile.

Aurora Sinclair didn’t smile. Not like this. The woman was carved from ice in front of the public. Cold. Untouchable. The kind of beauty that made men fantasize and women seethe.

Rumor had it the richest man in Crestwood had pursued her publicly. She’d shut him down without blinking, told him flat-out he wasn’t her type. The gossip columns had a field day. Some whispered she didn’t like men at all.

But right now, standing at the bottom of those steps, Aurora Sinclair was beaming at him like she’d been waiting for Christmas morning.

Sweet. Warm. Almost giddy.

It was so far from her public image that Ethan’s brain needed a second to reconcile the two.

“Have we met before?” he asked.

Aurora’s smile widened. “Of course. I’ve seen you more than ten times, Young Master.”

Ethan blinked.

Aurora glanced at the suited men flanking the Maybach, then back at him. “This isn’t the best place to talk.” She tilted her head toward the car. “Get in.”

The café occupied the top floor of a building Ethan had never set foot in — the kind of place that didn’t have prices on the menu because if you had to ask, you didn’t belong. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the river, and they were the only customers on the entire floor.

Aurora sat across from him, legs crossed, stirring a cup of coffee she hadn’t touched. The ice-queen mask was completely gone. In its place was something almost playful — like a kid who’d finally gotten to show off a secret.

“You said you’ve seen me,” Ethan said. “When?”

Aurora set down the spoon. “Too many times to count. But Mrs. Carter — your wife — was always there.”

“The one I remember most clearly,” Aurora continued, her voice softening, “was that charity banquet last summer. The one Stellaris hosted.”

Ethan’s jaw tightened.

“Your wife drank too much. Some real estate CEO cornered her in the lounge area — hands where they shouldn’t have been.” Aurora’s eyes locked onto his. “You walked straight through a room full of people, knocked him flat on his back, and carried her out.”

The memory hit like a sucker punch.

Last summer. July. Vivian had wanted to expand her network, so she’d gone to the banquet alone. Her secretary called Ethan three hours later, voice shaking.

He’d had a hundred-and-two-degree fever that night.

The fever was his own fault. Vivian had mentioned she was craving barbecue from that riverside night market stall — the one forty minutes away. He’d gone without a second thought. Got caught in a downpour on the way back. By morning, he could barely stand.

But when that call came, he dragged himself out of bed, drove across the city, and found Vivian passed out on a leather couch with some fifty-year-old property developer leaning over her, fingers brushing her thigh.

Ethan had broken the man’s nose.

And then the man’s bodyguards had broken Ethan’s face.

He remembered the taste of blood in his mouth. The laughter from the crowd. The whispers — “Isn’t that the Lockwood family’s live-in son-in-law? What a joke.”

He’d carried Vivian out anyway. Blood running down his temple, ribs screaming, legs barely holding.

When Vivian sobered up the next day and heard what happened, she didn’t thank him. She didn’t ask if he was okay.

She screamed at him for embarrassing her in front of her business contacts.

“That banquet,” Ethan said quietly. “That was yours.”

“Stellaris hosted it, yes.” Aurora nodded. “I didn’t know who you were at the time. But after that night, I had someone look into you.”

She paused. “I thought your wife was the luckiest woman in the world.”

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