He Lost Me to His Best Friend novel Chapter 597

In his expansive office, Yardley stared at his phone long after the call ended. His brows were pulled into a tight, hard line. It took him several seconds before he finally let out a low, frustrated exhale.

Scarlett wasn't rushing the divorce anymore.

Before, she had fought tooth and nail to break free from him. But now that he had agreed to all her ridiculous demands, she was suddenly completely indifferent. She hadn't even bothered to ask when they were going to City Hall. The desperation she once showed had completely vanished.

Sitting in his executive chair, he stewed in silence. Finally, he pulled open his desk drawer, took out a spare phone he rarely used, and dialed Scarlett's number.

She picked up quickly, her voice as cool and detached as ever. "Hello?"

"It's me."

His deep, resonant baritone was unmistakable. Scarlett didn't skip a beat. "Oh. What do you want?"

"When are you free? We need to go to City Hall."

His voice was uncharacteristically gravelly, suppressed under a heavy layer of tension.

Scarlett had just returned home from the hospital and was sitting on the plush playmat in the nursery. Dawn was sitting up perfectly on her own, happily waving two soft plastic balls in the air, babbling excitedly.

Scarlett simply wiggled her fingers, and Dawn erupted into a fit of adorable, breathless giggles.

The sweet, innocent sound of his daughter laughing carried through the speaker straight into Yardley's ear.

Hearing Dawn so happy violently yanked at his heartstrings. A suffocating wave of loss and regret crashed over him.

"Come here, Dawn. I'll play with you while Mommy's on the phone."

Meanwhile, his own indiscretions with Sylvia and Veronica had been thrown in Scarlett's face time and time again, complete with ironclad evidence. If they went to court over infidelity, he would be slaughtered.

The realization made the air in the room feel impossibly thin.

He was trapped in a nightmare where Scarlett held absolute power over every facet of his life, and he was completely impotent to stop her.

She could dictate his business, crush his family, hoard his child, extort him for every penny in the divorce settlement, and freely date whoever she wanted... and he could do absolutely nothing but watch.

Beaten down by failure after failure, Yardley had no choice but to accept his fate.

But a dark, festering pride burned in his chest.

He needed this divorce finalized now. Not just for the Thorne Industries partnership, but because Vincent was days away from securing a massive five-billion-dollar investment from a major international client.