My Billionaire Ex Wants Me Back (Katherine) novel Chapter 1

Chapter 1 Mrs Grant is at the Hospital

Chapter 1 Mrs Grant Is at the Hospital

“Katherine, the funeral’s about to start. Is Lucas still not coming?”

Katherine Pearce stood before her mother’s memorial altar in mourning black, candlelight flickering across her pale, colorless face as the flames danced and cast shifting shadows around her.

She lowered her head and glanced at her phone, the battery nearly dead. Lucas Grant still wasn’t picking up.

Her mother was gone. Katherine, seven months pregnant, had kept vigil for seven straight days, yet her husband of three years never showed up once.

Lucas was busy with work, and Katherine had always understood that.

She kept telling herself that Lucas was probably tied up with work.

“He’s probably busy. He won’t make it.”

Tears still clung to her lashes as Katherine extinguished the last candle. She braced herself against her own heavy body, struggling to stand. When she spoke, her voice was already hoarse and broken. “It’s time to lay her to rest.”

Her aunt, Helen Pearce, spoke with thinly veiled sarcasm. “Katherine, how busy can Lucas really be? Seven days without showing his face-he’s really got no respect for your mom.”

Her cousin, Chloe Pearce, let out a snort. “Mom, you got it wrong. It’s not that Mr. Grant doesn’t take Aunt Melissa seriously. He just doesn’t take Katherine seriously. Oh, and the babies in her belly either.”

Their mocking voices cut especially deep. Katherine’s chest tightened with bitterness, yet she still told herself that since their marriage, Lucas had always been a proper husband. He wouldn’t skip on purpose. He had to be held up by work.

She had barely managed to convince herself when reality slapped her hard across the face.

Chloe stared at her phone and suddenly cried out, “Isn’t this Mr. Grant? He’s trending right now.”

Chloe deliberately shoved the phone in front of Katherine.

Katherine lowered her gaze to the screen. It was a trending video, posted that morning, filmed the night before.

The headline read, “Grant Enterprise CEO Books Entire Venue to Celebrate Birthday of His True Love, Rachel Hart.”

In the video, fireworks exploded brilliantly across the night sky. The man sat elegantly and confidently in a nearby chair, his deep eyes calmly fixed on the girl beside him. The girl pointed excitedly at the fireworks, her smile seeming even brighter than the lights overhead.

The fireworks were dazzling, but Katherine’s eyes stayed locked on the man’s back.

She knew it too well. One glance was enough to recognize that the man in the video was her husband, Lucas.

So last night, he was out celebrating another woman’s birthday with fireworks?

Katherine’s mind went blank for several seconds her body so stiff that she couldn’t move.

The sound of fireworks bursting blended with Chloe’s mocking voice. “Katherine, didn’t you say Lucas was busy? He really is busy-busy booking out a whole venue to celebrate another woman’s birthday.”

Katherine clenched her fists, her head filled with images of Lucas lighting fireworks for another woman.

She thought he was busy.

Even when her mother died, something so huge she carried everything alone, afraid of bothering him.

Seven days. No time to answer a single call from her. No time to come light a candle for her mother. Yet he had time to book out an entire venue and put on a fireworks show for another woman.

How ridiculous.

The woman in the video was Lucas’s first love, the woman he truly loved.

And Katherine was only the wife Lucas’s grandfather, Elijah Grant, arranged for him to have, to repay her father’s life-saving kindness, hoping to give her lifelong security by having Lucas marry her.

For three years, Katherine knew he didn’t love her, so she never dared trouble Lucas with her own matters, never dared hope for anything more.

Lucas was a cold man who didn’t understand romance. He skipped every holiday. His life revolved around work.

Only now did she realize that Lucas wasn’t incapable of romance. He just didn’t want to be romantic with her.

One grand, brilliant fireworks display turned Katherine into the biggest joke of all.

She clenched her teeth, forced down the pain in her chest, and pulled her gaze away from the phone, trying not to look so pitiful.

She still needed to see through Melissa Pearce’s funeral. She had to hold on.

Katherine bent down with effort, lifted Melissa’s framed photograph into her arms, and walked out, ignoring the mocking stares around her.

She still remembered that Melissa, before passing, wanted to see Lucas one last time.

Back then, Katherine had called Lucas over and over too. He never answered. Maybe he was with Rachel even then.

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