The Billionaire Ex-Wife's Return (Cynthia and Ethan) novel Chapter 77

Chapter 77

Ethan’s POV

My gaze drifted back to where Cynthia had been standing outside the restaurant window.

She wasn’t there anymore.

I frowned, craning my neck to see better. When did she leave? Was she on her way back inside?

I straightened in my seat, adjusting my collar, smoothing the lapels of my jacket like a schoolboy about to give a presentation. She’d said she would be back. She’d left the divorce papers on the table. Of course she was coming back.

I waited.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

The restaurant hummed around me, low conversations, clinking silverware, the occasional burst of laughter, but everything felt muffled, distant. My eyes stayed locked on the entrance, willing her silhouette to appear.

I flagged down a waiter and ordered another coffee, just to have something to do with my hands. The cup arrived steaming, I never touched it. The scent of espresso turned bitter in my nose.

Fifteen minutes.

Twenty.

Maybe her phone call was taking longer than expected. Maybe it was something urgent, something about the restaurant she owned in Paris. It made sense that she’d need to handle things, she now has a whole renowned three star restaurant.

She would come back. She had to come back.

Thirty minutes.

The waiter approached again, polite hesitation in his eyes. “Monsieur, would you like anything else?”

I waved him away, irritation sharp in my voice. I didn’t want food. I didn’t want more coffee. I wanted my wife to walk through that door.

I stood up and walked toward the entrance, stepping outside into the cool night air. The streetlights painted everything gold and shadow. I scanned both directions, left, right, the crosswalk, the taxi stand.

No sign of her.

I walked back inside, circled the restaurant like a man possessed, checked the restrooms, the bar, the private dining alcove, maybe she’d come in through another entrance?

Nothing.

I returned to my seat, feeling more defeated with each passing second.

Forty–five minutes.

An hour.

By now I’d walked the entire restaurant at least four times. I’d checked my phone obsessively, no messages, no missed calls, nothing from Cynthia, nothing from anyone. The screen stayed cruelly blank.

#77

+25 Bonus

She wasn’t coming back.

The realization settled over me like a cold weight, heavier than the ring I still wore, heavier than the vows I’d broken a thousand

times without even noticing.

She’d left.

She’d walked out while I sat here like a fool, rehearsing apologies, imagining her softening, picturing her hand in mine again.

I slumped into my chair, all the energy draining out of me.

My eyes fell on the divorce envelope, still sitting exactly where she’d left it. The thick brown paper looked smug, triumphant. A silent confrontation. A statement she didn’t even need words to make.

Sign this.

Let me go.

You don’t deserve another chance.

What if she really hated me that much? What if everything I’d said tonight, the confession ripped raw from my chest, the plea, the promise to change, meant nothing to her?

No.

I refused to believe that.

There was history between us. Eleven years of marriage. A son. Memories that couldn’t be erased, even if most of them were tainted by my indifference, my cruelty, my blindness.

She couldn’t hate me that much. She couldn’t have moved on so completely that my words didn’t even register.

Could she?

I stared at the envelope for a long moment, the restaurant noise fading to a dull roar in my ears.

Then I reached out and grabbed it.

I thought about opening it. Reading through the legal language. Seeing exactly how thoroughly she wanted me gone.

But I couldn’t.

Instead, I gripped both ends of the envelope and tore it in half.

The sound of ripping paper cracked through the quiet restaurant like a gunshot. A few nearby diners glanced over, startled, then quickly looked away.

I didn’t care.

I tore it again. And again. And again. Until the divorce papers were nothing but confetti scattered across the pristine white tablecloth, until the words written ion them were shredded into meaningless scraps.

“I am not letting you go, Cynthia,” I muttered under my breath, my jaw tight with determination.

I loved her. I knew that now with a certainty that scorched me, not the comfortable, taken–for–granted love of a man who assumed his wife would always be there, but a desperate, aching love born from the terror of losing her forever.

“I love you,” I said to the empty chair across from me, voice cracking. “And I will prove myself.”

I didn’t know how. Didn’t know where to start or if she would ever give me the chance.

But I knew one thing for certain.

#77

I wasn’t signing those papers.

Not today.

Not tomorrow.

Not ever.

If Cynthia wanted a divorce, she was going to have to drag me through every court in Missford to get it.

And Ethan Walker didn’t lose fights.

I would fight dirty if I had to.

I would fight until she remembered the man she once believed in.

I would fight until she saw that I was finally, finally ready to become him.

I stood up, leaving the shredded papers like a battlefield behind me.

Comments