Ex Wife's Collapse After Divorce novel Chapter 76

Chapter 76

The words hung in the air like smoke.

Ethan’s head came up. “What?”

The reaction was everything Julian had hoped for. His mouth curved, slow and satisfied.

“She hasn’t told you, has she?” He tilted his head, savoring it. “Of course she hasn’t. Why would she? The moment you heard it, you’d walk out that door and never look back. Any man would.”

His smile widened. “She’d never risk that.”

Ethan’s brow drew tight. “Explain.”

Something flickered behind Julian’s eyes-a small, cold flash of resentment.

He didn’t like the tone. That single flat word, explain, delivered as though Julian were a servant and Ethan someone with the standing to command him. As though a nobody who rented a room had any right to speak to the heir of Blackwood Capital like that.

But he swallowed it, because the pleasure of what came next was worth more.

“Fine.” He drew the moment out, unhurried. “Let me educate you, then. A long time ago-years and years -there was a man. Nobody, really. Poor. The kind of man who had nothing but ambition and a good face.”

His fingers drummed once against his own thigh. “And there was a woman who loved him anyway. Loved him when he had nothing. She followed him, believed in him, gave up everything for him while he clawed his way up. And he did climb. All the way. One of those overnight stories this city loves so much- penniless one year, the brightest name in the market the next.”

Ethan said nothing. He was watching Julian’s face, and something in his chest had gone very still.

“You’d think that’s a happy ending,” Julian went on, relishing every word. “But here’s the part they leave out. The moment he arrived-the moment he was somebody-he threw her away. Just like that. While she was still carrying his child, he married another woman. The eldest daughter of one of the oldest families in this city. A clean, proper match. Blood for blood, money for money.”

He spread his hands. “Overnight, the woman who’d loved him through the gutter became nothing. A mistress. A stain to be quietly paid off and forgotten.”

The corridor felt colder somehow.

“She broke,” Julian said, softer now, almost tender in his cruelty. “Gave birth, and never recovered. Grief

does that. It sank into her like rot. She was gone within the year.”

He met Ethan’s eyes. “That woman was Aurora’s mother. And that little inconvenience she was carrying

at the time-that was Aurora.”

The corridor seemed suddenly too quiet.

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Ethan remembered Aurora’s face when her secretary mentioned her father. The hard line of her mouth. The coldness that had swept through her eyes.

No wonder she hated him.

No wonder she acted as if the man downstairs was a stranger instead of her father.

Julian watched Ethan closely, enjoying every second of it.

“You think her father was completely heartless?” he asked. “Not exactly. He’s supported Aurora all these

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