The Billionaire Ex-Wife's Return (Cynthia and Ethan) novel Chapter 114

“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady despite the way my traitorous heart was still racing.

Ethan stood there in the hallway outside my classroom, looking completely out of place among the academic posters and bulletin boards. He was dressed impeccably as always his hair perfectly styled, every inch the successful businessman.

—

“I came to pay my wife a visit,” Ethan said, his tone casual but his eyes intense, burning into mine with an intensity that made me want to look away. “Since my wife refused to meet me and even ignored my message.”

The possessiveness in his voice-“my wife“-made something twist uncomfortably in my chest. He had no right to that possessiveness.

I rolled my eyes, gripping my bag tighter like it was a shield between us. “We’re getting a divorce soon, Ethan. What do you want?”

The words came out harsher than I’d intended, but I didn’t take them back. He needed to understand that his sudden declarations of love didn’t erase the past. Didn’t magically fix eight years of neglect and humiliation.

“Over my dead body will I sign those divorce papers,” he said with some sort of conviction, determination, an absolute certainty -that made my breath catch in my throat.

This wasn’t the Ethan I knew. The Ethan I knew would have been relieved at the prospect of divorce. Would have seen it as freedom from the burden of a wife he’d never wanted in the first place.

But this Ethan… this Ethan was looking at me like I was something precious. Something he couldn’t bear to lose.

Our eyes met, and Ethan had a smile on his face that made something warm and dangerous unfurl in my chest. That smile… The one I’d craved for eight years and never received. The one I’d imagined a thousand times during lonely nights in our marriage, wondering what I’d have to do to earn it.

It made him look younger, softer, vulnerable. Like the boy I’d fallen in love with in that warehouse twenty years ago, when we’d both been so scared and he’d held my hand in the darkness like I was his lifeline.

I felt myself almost melting under that gaze, my resolve weakening, my carefully constructed walls starting to crumble.

No. No, I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t let one smile undo all the progress I’d made. All the healing I’d fought for.

I snapped out of it immediately when my cellphone rang, the sound cutting through the moment like a knife.

Thank God.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I needed an escape from those eyes, from that smile, from the way Ethan was looking at me like I was the only person in the world.

I turned away from Ethan to answer it, putting physical distance between us as I started walking quickly down the hallway toward the exit. But he followed behind me, his footsteps keeping perfect pace with mine, his presence a warm weight at my

back.

“Don’t you have work to do?” I asked over my shoulder, trying to sound annoyed rather than flustered. “Businesses to run? Meetings to attend? I’m sure Walker Industries doesn’t run itself.”

“Nothing more important than this,” he said simply, and the words hit me harder than they should have.

Because for eight years, everything had been more important than me. Work. Business deals. Late nights at the office. Drinks with Bryan and Devian. Anna.

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Everything had taken priority over his wife.

And now, suddenly, I was the most important thing?

I couldn’t let myself believe it.

I pulled out my phone and glanced at the screen, Bryan.

My heart sank. Of all the times for Bryan to call, why did it have to be now? With Ethan right here, watching me?

Before I could hide the screen or reject the call or do anything, Ethan reached out and pulled the phone from my hand with surprising speed.

“Ethan! Give that back!” I lunged for it, but he was taller than me, holding it just out of reach as he looked at the caller ID.

I saw the exact moment he registered Bryan’s name. His expression darkened immediately, like storm clouds rolling across a Clear sky. His jaw clenched. His eyes went hard and cold.

‘Bryan,” he said flatly, more to himself than to me. Then he looked at me, and I saw everything flash across his face in rapid succession – hurt, anger, jealousy, betrayal, and a dozen other emotions I couldn’t name.

He took a deep breath, and I knew… what he was about to do.

‘Ethan, don’t you dare…”

But before I could finish the sentence, he’d already answered the phone and placed it on loudspeaker.

‘Hey Cynthia,” Bryan’s voice came through the speaker, warm and casual and completely oblivious to the tension on this end.” I’d be waiting for you at the restaurant. I just saw your message. Come hungry.”

He said it in a very casual manner, like we were old friends meeting for lunch. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. The way you’d talk to someone you were comfortable with.

But to Ethan, standing there holding my phone with his knuckles white and his expression murderous – it clearly sounded like something else entirely.

And honestly, to me in this moment, hearing Bryan’s warm, familiar tone while Ethan glared at me with those hurt, angry eyes…

It did sound intimate. Like something more than just a business meeting.

Even though it wasn’t.

Was it?

God, why was everything so complicated?