Ex Wife's Collapse After Divorce novel Chapter 38

Chapter 38

Six o’clock.

The lobby of Stellaris International Trading emptied in its usual evening rush – employees streaming through the glass doors, loosening ties, checking phones, splitting off toward the subway entrance or the parking garage.

Ethan walked out with the crowd.

He saw the car immediately.

A pearl-white Bentley Continental GT sat at the curb directly in front of the main entrance, gleaming under the fading sunlight like it had been placed there by a magazine stylist.

The driver’s window slid down.

Sophie Whitfield leaned across the center console, oversized sunglasses pushed up into her hair, red lips curved into a smile that belonged on a billboard.

“Ethan! Over here!”

Every head within a hundred-foot radius turned.

Employees froze mid-step. Conversations died. A cluster of women from the marketing department stopped dead, eyes ping-ponging between the Bentley and Ethan like they were watching a tennis match.

Travis, halfway to the subway, spun around so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet.

Ethan’s eye twitched.

He walked to the passenger side and leaned down to the window, keeping his voice low.

“Did you have to do this?”

“Do what?”

“Park a Bentley in front of my office building. At rush hour. With the window down.”

Sophie blinked, genuinely confused. “This is how I always pick people up.”

“You could’ve parked around the corner.”

“Why would I park around the corner? I’m not ashamed of my car.” She patted the passenger seat. “Get in. People are staring.”

“They’re staring because of you.”

“Then stop standing there and give them less to stare at.”

Ethan exhaled.

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He opened the door and got in.

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The leather seat swallowed him in buttery softness. The interior smelled like jasmine the same jasmine that had clung to his collar that morning.

Sophie pulled away from the curb smoothly, merging into traffic with the casual confidence of someone who’d been driving cars worth more than most people’s houses since she was eighteen.

Ethan glanced in the side mirror. The cluster of employees was still standing on the sidewalk, phones raised, mouths open.

He looked away.

‘Let them talk.’

The gossip would spread by morning. Ethan Carter, leaving work in a strange woman’s Bentley. The theories would range from secret girlfriend to sugar mama to corporate honey trap.

He didn’t care.

–

What he’d cared about – the only thing was whether Sophie would use those photos to destroy his reputation. Leak them to colleagues. Send them to Aurora.

But after that phone call, something had shifted in his assessment.

Sophie was reckless. Flirtatious. Boundary-blind. She’d drugged him, photographed him, and now ambushed him at his workplace with a luxury car like she was picking up a date for prom.

But she wasn’t malicious.

She wanted his attention, not his ruin. A woman who genuinely intended to blackmail him wouldn’t have tipped her hand so carelessly, wouldn’t have offered information about Vivian as a bargaining chip.

Ethan settled back into the seat, watching the car heading in a direction that seemed somewhat familiar

to him

The floor-to-ceiling windows of the CEO’s office on the forty-seventh floor offered an unobstructed view of the building’s main entrance.

Aurora stood before them, arms crossed, watching the street below.

She’d been standing there for eleven minutes.

She saw the Bentley arrive. She saw Sophie lean out the window. She saw the employees stop and gawk. She saw Ethan hesitate, say something to the driver, then open the door and slide into the passenger

seat.

She saw the car pull away and disappear into the evening traffic.

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Her eyes could have cut glass.

‘He forgot.’

Tonight. He’d promised her tonight. Dinner. Together. The words had left his mouth less than five hours. ago at that cafeteria table – “I’ll eat with you. Starting tonight.”

And now he was climbing into another woman’s car.

“Linda.”

Her secretary appeared in the doorway within seconds, tablet clutched to her chest. The woman had worked for Aurora long enough to read atmospheric pressure. Right now, the barometer was

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