Ex Wife's Collapse After Divorce novel Chapter 83

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Chapter 83

Vivian looked up at him, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. “Really?”

“Really.” He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Forget I said anything. We’ll handle him another way. Legally. Properly.”

“Thank you.” She exhaled. “Thank you for understanding.”

“Always.” His thumb brushed her cheek. “Do you want me to drive you back to the office?”

She hesitated. A beat too long.

“No,” she said. “I think I want to be alone for a while. Clear my head.”

Damian’s face stiffened, the smile locking rigid on his lips.

“Of course,” he said. “Whatever you like.”

She squeezed his arm once, and turned, and walked away toward the black car idling at the curb.

The instant her back was to him, the warmth drained out of Damian Hale’s face like water through a cracked glass. What was left was flat, and dark, and very cold.

Then he pulled out his phone.

The call connected on the second ring.

“Mr. Hale!” The voice on the other end was instantly, oily bright with deference. “What an honor. I was just thinking about you the other day, I really-”

“Nathan.” Damian cut through the fawning without ceremony. “Let me ask you something. Do you want to get back at Ethan Carter?”

There was a beat of startled silence.

“…Sir?” Nathan’s tone shifted, careful now, guarded. “Why-why do you ask a thing like that?”

“It’s a simple question,” Damian said. “Do you want revenge on him, or not?”

Another pause. Then, quietly, honestly: “…Yes. God, yes. That bastard threw me out on my first day back. Made a spectacle of me.”

“Then why haven’t you done anything about it?” Damian’s voice was cool, faintly mocking. “A man wrongs you like that, and you just swallow it? What’s the matter-don’t have it in you? Not enough spine

to hit back?”

“That’s not it,” Nathan said quickly, stung. “That’s not it at all. It’s just-” He faltered.

“Just what?” Damian pressed. “Say it. The truth.”

Nathan hesitated on the line, and when he spoke his voice had dropped almost to a whisper.

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“… They say he’s Aurora Sinclair’s man. Her kept man. And I-look, Mr. Hale, if I laid a hand on someone under the Sinclair’s protection, the fallout…” He swallowed audibly. “I couldn’t survive it. That’s a price I

can’t pay. Not on my own.”

Damian let out a short, contemptuous laugh.

“On your own,” he repeated. “And what if you weren’t? What if you had someone standing behind you?” His voice smoothed into something silky and dangerous. “What if Lockwood Industries and Hale Realty

were both at your back, Nathan? What then?”

The silence this time was electric.

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