My Husband Chose His Ex I Became His Regret novel Chapter 95

Chapter 95

Chapter 95

Aidan

I had broken Evelyn’s heart a long time ago.

:

I did not know she was going to hurt me through my wife.

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I asked Thomas to come into my study at eight forty-three, fourteen minutes after Evelyn’s car left our house while Lila was in the living room with Marcus, who had shown up at our house during the argument with Evelyn, which was something Marcus was really good at. He always knew when to be somewhere.

I trusted Marcus with a lot of things. I trusted him with Lila, which was a special kind of trust and Marcus understood that without me having to tell him.

I closed the study door.

Thomas had his tablet with him and he put it on the desk between us then he stood up straight like he was about to tell me some bad news. He was well prepared and careful and he looked me in the eye.

“Tell me everything ” I said to him.

He told me.

The midnight release was planned to happen on seven platforms at the same time so that a lot of people would see it before anyone could stop it. It was not something an amateur could do it was the work of someone who knew how to spread information and had done it before.

The package of information was made up of four parts. They were all put together to tell a story.

First there were screenshots of text messages between me and Evelyn. They did not have dates on them but they were in an order that told a certain story.

As Thomas scrolled through the messages on his tablet I recognised them. I knew every word. I knew exactly when they were written, during the eighteen months it took to end something that should have ended more cleanly with a lot of back-and-forth between two people who cared about each other but ended it badly.

I knew the context of the messages. I knew what they actually meant but none of that context was included.

Second there were clips. Four of them and they were between ninety seconds and four minutes long. They were phone calls I did not know were being recorded and my voice was on them saying things that were true on their own but were put together to mean something else.

Thomas played forty seconds of one clip with the volume low and I felt a strange feeling of hearing myself say things that were not true it was like someone was using my words against me and it was a special kind of

hurt.

Third, there was a letter. It was supposed to be from Evelyn to a friend and it was dated two years ago. It was about a man who would not stop calling her who could not accept that it was over and who made it hard for her to move on, the language was very emotional and private like something that was not meant to be seen by anyone and that was what made it effective. Now she was making it seem like I was that friend.

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I read it twice. She really planned this well.

Fourth there was a video.

Thomas turned the tablet towards me. I saw Evelyn sitting in a room I did not recognise. It was warm and cozy with bookshelves and soft light and she looked like she had tried to look like she was not trying to look good, she was talking to someone who was not in the picture and her voice was low and sounded like she was trying hard to talk.

She said: I never talked about this in public because I did not want to hurt him but I have been watching what people are saying about Lila Stark and I have to say something because the story that is being told about Aidan Storm is not true and Lila deserves to know which one is real. Because the story being told about who Aidan Storm is, that he’s this devoted, changed man who found real love, I lived a different version. And she deserves to know which one is real.

I watched thirty seconds of it then I said: “Stop it.”

Thomas stopped the video.

The room was quiet and outside the window the snow was falling harder and the security lights made it look like a lot of lines against the dark I looked at the garden and the lake and I thought about Lila, who was in the foyer forty minutes ago standing near the woman in the video. She was steady and calm like she had been through harder things and had come out okay.

I thought about how much of the video was real.: “How much of it is real?”

Thomas was careful, he was always careful when he was talking about things that were partly true. He said: “The text messages are real the audio is real the letter may be real but we are not sure and the video is real but the things Evelyn says in it are her own version of what happened.”

I said nothing I just sat there. Thought about it.

“The video was recorded and the things Evelyn says in it are her version of what happened but that does not make them true and even if they were true it would not matter because the story may be cooked against me but she’s still targeting Lila.” I replied. She’s been planning my downfall.

I turned away from the window and I sat down in my chair and I looked at my hands for a moment, I thought about how I had met Evelyn at a conference in London years ago, she was smart and funny. She was not impressed by me. I found that interesting, we had two years of something real but it was not enough. I was not able to give her what she needed and she was not able to understand why I could not, we were not wrong, we were just not right for each other.

She ended it first and I let her. We did not end it cleanly, we sent texts and made phone calls for too long and neither of us was willing to make a clean break, we were both holding on to something we could not name and when it finally ended I thought it had ended without any bad blood. I moved on and I thought she had

too.

Now I understood that she had been saving everything all the texts I had sent her during those eighteen months all the phone calls and she had been building a story she was going to tell when the time was right and the time was now because I was married to Lila and the story was not about me, it was about Lila it was about making Lila doubt me and that was the part that made me feel cold and angry not the texts, not the audio, not even the video but the fact that Evelyn had planned this that she had wanted to hurt Lila.

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I picked up my phone and texted Marcus: Is Lila okay?

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Marcus replied: She is fine, we’re just chatting and she is drinking tea, you do what you need to do.

I put the phone down and faced Thomas. “Tell me the story she’s planning, the whole story from start to finish.”

Thomas told me the story, the story that Evelyn had built the story that said I was obsessed with Evelyn, that I had pursued her for months after she tried to leave me that I had found Lila and married her because I was still in love with Evelyn that Lila was a substitute, for Evelyn.

I listened to the story and I couldn’t help but laugh. It sounded crazy to me because they were lies but other people will fall for it.

“Evelyn is just trying to hurt me and is just targeting Lila.”

Thomas did not say anything he did not need to. I knew it was true. I thought about Lila. How she would feel if she saw the texts and the video and I knew what I had to do. I had to tell her everything. I had to give her all the information and let her decide what to do. I could not protect her from this. I could only give her the truth.

I stood up. “Send me everything, all the documents, all the audio, all the video tonight.”

Thomas said: “I will, but there is something”

I looked up. He said: “The release of the information was planned it was done on seven platforms at the same time and it cost a lot of money Evelyn could not have done it on her own.”

I looked at him. “She has people behind her.”

“I think so yes.”

“Who are they.”

“I have found out a bit. I want to be sure before I tell you.”

“How long will it take.”

“By tomorrow morning.”

I nodded. I walked around the desk. Thomas was heading for the door. I stopped him by saying: “Thomas.”

He turned around.

“She thought the messages would be enough to make Lila doubt me ” I said. “She does not know what Lila and I have really built.”

Thomas looked at me for a moment. Something changed in his face. It was not a smile. More like he understood something important.

“No” he said. “She does not.”

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Chapter 95

He left.

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I stood in the study for a moment. The fire had burned down to embers. Outside the snow was falling on the grounds without caring what it covered.

I thought about Evelyn on that tablet. The warm room, her hair the way she made it seem so personal. She had spent years knowing me enough to understand that the best way to hurt me was not to attack my company or my name. It was to go after Lila. She knew that before I did.

I opened the study door.

The hallway was warm and quiet. I could hear Marcus talking in the living room. He was telling the Barcelona story. Then I heard Lila laugh. It was a soft genuine laugh, the kind she had before she could control it, the kind I had seen her stop hiding over the past year as she became herself.

I walked towards the sound.

She looked up when I came into the room. Her feet were on the sofa, her hands were around her mug. She looked at my face the way she always did when something important was happening. She was completely focused on me.

“Is everything all right?” she said.

“I need to tell you something ” I said.

Marcus stood up right away like a man who knows when to leave a room. “I am going to get tea.” he said and left.

Lila put her mug down.

She did not look scared. She looked ready. Not prepared to defend herself not nervous. Ready, like someone who has decided to face whatever comes her way.

I sat down across from her.

I told her about the package. Everything. The messages, the audio, the video, the whole story. I told her where the messages came from and what they really meant. I told her about the end with Evelyn, the end, the messy one without making it sound cleaner than it was.

She listened without interrupting me.

When I finished she was quiet for a moment.

“The messages. The real ones. What were you saying in them?”

I looked at her. “That I was sorry it took long to understand. That I knew I had not been there for her enough. That I wanted her to be okay.”

She kept looking at me, reading me the way she always did. Slowly, deeply.

“That is not a man who is obsessed” she said.

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“No.”

“That is a man who’s bad at endings.”

“Yes.”

“Okay” she said.

I looked at her. “Okay?”

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“Okay” she said again. “I believe you. I want to see everything Thomas has. Tonight. All of it.” She picked her mug up again. “.I want to know who is behind Evelyn.”

“Thomas is trying to find out. By tomorrow morning.”

She nodded. Looked at me. Something changed in her face. It was not soft. More like she had made a decision and was standing by it. “Evelyn built this to make me doubt you.” she said. “She chose the thing that would hurt not just your name and company. Something that will hurt me and she’s tarnishing my reputation while at it. Mine. She wants me to look at you and wonder.”

“I know.”

“Evelyn chose wrong” Lila said. “She does not know what we have built.”

I felt something inside me something I could not quite describe. Something that had been growing since she walked into the foyer alone two hours ago and stood near a woman who wanted to take something from her and said: I have already survived the worst version of this.

“Lila “I started softly.

She looked at me.

“Whatever story Evelyn built. What it says about you and me. It is wrong. You are not a replacement for anyone. You are not a solution or a distraction.” I kept my voice steady. “You are the only person I have ever looked at and thought: that one. That is who I want to build something real with. That is who I want to be responsible to.”

She looked at me for a moment and smiled.

“I know.”

“Are you sure?”

“I was sure before you said it ” she said. “But I am glad you said it.”

“I love you so much baby.” I say kissing her forehead.

“I love you too.” She replied.

A few hours later, my phone pinged, I had gotten a message from Thomas.

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