The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 582

**TITLE: Military 582**
**Chapter 582 Not A Coincidence**

Laura raised her eyes, and there he was—Weston Windore, a towering figure that loomed in her hazy vision like a dark lighthouse amid the club’s swirling lights.

*Why is he here?* she pondered, a knot of confusion tightening in her chest.

With a determined flick of her wrist, she tried to wave him off, though a small hiccup betrayed her inebriation. “No need. I’ll order a driver myself. Just give me back my phone.”

As she reached out for the device, her judgment faltered, and she stumbled forward, landing squarely against Weston’s solid chest.

He caught her effortlessly, his strength both surprising and comforting. “You’re drunk, Laura. I’m taking you home,” he declared, his tone firm but not harsh.

She pushed lightly against him, her words spilling out in a jumbled protest. “I said no. I can manage just fine. Just hand over my phone, I—”

Before she could finish, Weston swept her up onto his shoulder with a swift, practiced motion, snagging her handbag from a nearby chair as if it were an afterthought.

Laura’s senses wavered, drifting in and out like waves lapping at the shore, as if someone had draped a veil of gauze over the night.

When her mind finally cleared, she found herself securely buckled into the passenger seat of her own sedan. Weston occupied the driver’s seat, his body angled toward her as he deftly worked the clasp of her seatbelt.

She took in the familiar interior—the leather still faintly infused with her perfume, a half-empty bottle of water rolling lazily in the footwell—and confirmed what her skin already knew: this was undeniably her car.

*Fine. If Weston wants to play chauffeur tonight, I’ll save what little strength I have left and let him.*

The engine purred to life, and he maneuvered the vehicle through the rain-slicked streets toward her apartment, headlights slicing through the darkness like a beacon.

“Why are you tailing me?” Laura’s voice pierced the silence of the cabin, brittle and sharp, as if she had snapped at the edge of her patience.

“What do you mean?” Weston’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, the tension in his voice palpable.

“I might be a little drunk,” she admitted, a soft laugh escaping her lips, “but my brain hasn’t completely checked out. You showed up at that bar, and then you appeared again the moment I tried to leave. Don’t tell me that was just a coincidence.”

Besides, that bar was hardly the kind of place Weston usually frequented; it was a world apart from his usual haunts.

“You’re right—it wasn’t chance,” he confessed, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. “The moment you walked out of the police holding cell, I started following you. I trailed you to the bar, waited, and I’ve been on your heels for four hours and thirty-five minutes.”

“So that’s the reason,” Laura murmured, lifting her eyes to his chiseled profile, a flash of mockery dancing in her gaze. “Is this what you call devotion, Weston? The language of love? Even after I turned you down, you plan to cling to me like a shadow?”

“If I really keep clinging, what will you do about it?” he countered, sidestepping her question with a defiant glint in his eye.

“Nothing complicated. I’ll keep saying no.” She let out a light, careless laugh, the sound airy and free. “A man as proud as you can only endure so many rejections before his ego begs for mercy.”

Worse still, when his new wife demanded that every trace of Laura’s mother be erased, he had complied without hesitation.

Laura had managed to save only one thing—a photo album cradling the last precious images of her mother.

She could still hear her father’s voice, calm to the point of cruelty. “Laura, your mother is gone. I can’t dwell in pain forever. I deserve a new life, and I have to think of Sylvia’s feelings. She is the lady of this house now.”

Once, everyone had envied her mother’s happiness, marveling at the devoted husband who worshipped the ground she walked on.

Yet the moment her mother passed, that same husband had hurried to collect matchmaking cards, eager to start anew.

Laura found that kind of love pathetic. To her, a love built solely on convenience was nothing but a cruel joke.

For her father, romance had become a logistical necessity. He needed a “wife” the way a company needs a receptionist; the actual woman, her heart, her name—all negotiable, all interchangeable.

In that hollow house, she felt like the last archivist of a fading era.

She was the one who pressed her mother’s photographs into frames, who braved the cold dawn of every winter and the soft thaw of each early April, trekking to the cemetery to kneel before the stone and offer quiet prayers.

Turning toward him, her eyes glassy yet defiant, she said, “Weston, what I want is a man who loves the way I just described, a marriage built on that kind of heart. Tell me… do I stand any chance at all?”