Ex Wife's Collapse After Divorce novel Chapter 78

Chapter 78

Julian’s face had gone the color of ash.

For a moment he simply stared at the hand locked around his wrist, at the grip that would not yield no matter how he strained against it. This wasn’t right. Men like Ethan didn’t do this. Men like Ethan swallowed, and bowed, and disappeared.

He wet his lips and lowered his voice, pitching it careful and quiet.

“You should think very carefully about what you’re doing. I’m the heir to Blackwood Capital. Do you have any idea what happens to a man who lays a hand on me? You wouldn’t dare.”

Ethan’s expression didn’t change.

“You think a name is going to frighten me,” he said, cold and unhurried.

He let his gaze drift once around the corridor. Then it came back to Julian’s face, and there was something almost amused in it now.

“Let’s imagine something,” Ethan said softly. “Imagine a middle manager-just a middle manager, nobody at all-walked up to the heir of Blackwood Capital, right here, in front of all these people, and slapped him across the face.”

His head tipped, considering. “What do you suppose would happen then?”

Julian’s breath caught.

“Your bodyguards aren’t here,” Ethan went on. “It’s just you and me.”

The wrist jerked in his grip-a sharp, panicked twist. It didn’t move. Ethan held it as easily as before, and that stillness, that effortlessness, frightened Julian more than any blow could have.

“Don’t-” Julian’s voice cracked, dropped, went almost pleading. “Don’t do anything rash. Let’s just talk.

We can talk about this.”

Ethan said nothing.

The silence was worse than a threat. Julian felt sweat prickle at his collar. He tried again, faster, the words tumbling over each other. “Look-there’s no need for this, alright? Whatever you want, we can-

there’s no need.”

Still Ethan didn’t answer. He simply watched, patient as stone, the way a man watches something small

squirm.

And Julian broke.

The last of the arrogance drained out of his face. “Please,” he said, barely loud enough to hear. “Don’t do

this.”

Ethan tilted his head.

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“Is that,” he asked mildly, “how a man asks for a favor?”

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The words landed like a slap of their own. Julian’s face flooded red-shame and fury tangled together, the humiliation of it burning worse than the grip on his wrist. His jaw worked. For a moment it looked as though pride might win.

Then Ethan’s fingers tightened, just slightly, and the moment passed.

“I’m asking you,” Julian ground out, the words scraping raw through his teeth, “to let me off. Tonight.”

Ethan looked at him for a long beat, unbothered, almost bored.

“And then?” he said.

Julian froze. “…And then what?”

“After the apology.” Ethan’s voice was perfectly level. “What comes next? Or were you planning to keep standing here-an eyesore, in her way and in mine?”

The color in Julian’s face went from red to something mottled and ugly. He was shaking now, whether with rage or fear even he couldn’t have said.

“I’ll leave,” he managed. “Right now. I’ll go.”

“There it is,” Ethan murmured. “You can listen after all.”

He opened his hand.

The release came smooth and unhurried, the motion small enough that to anyone glancing down the corridor it might have looked like nothing at all-two men standing close, exchanging a word, parting.

No scene. No spectacle. Julian stumbled back a half-step, cradling his wrist against his chest, and shot Ethan a single venomous glare, hatred and terror boiling behind his eyes.

Then he turned and walked away, fast, not quite running, and did not look back.

Ethan stood alone in the empty corridor.

For a moment something unfamiliar settled over him. Not triumph. Something quieter than that, and

emptier.

Aurora wasn’t back yet.

He waited, and the emptiness didn’t lift. At last he took out his phone and typed a message-Something came up. I’ve gone home ahead. Don’t wait for me.-and after a breath, he sent it.

Then he left the party behind and drove back to the villa the two of them shared.

He went to his room and began to pack.

The first thing he noticed was how wrong it felt. Every drawer he opened held pieces of him now. A coffee mug in the kitchen, the kind he liked. A sweater thrown over the back of a chair. Books stacked on

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the nightstand, their spines cracked from reading.

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