The Don Tore Up Our Divorce (Gemma and Cassian) novel Chapter 319

Chapter 319

Gemma’s POV

Clink!

The glasses echo the sound of my freedom.

We’re at a cozy restaurant, and the air is thick with the scent of good food and better company. Zina, Jace, Molly, and I are celebrating.

The centerpiece of this celebration isn’t the wine, which I’m sipping as sparkling water, but the single piece of paper lying beside my plate: my divorce certificate.

Zina raises her glass, her face beaming. “To freedom!”

She declares. I clink my water glass against hers in a quiet, satisfying chime. The bitterness I expected to feel is absent. There’s only a vast, quiet emptiness, and for the first time, it feels like peace rather than loss.

When will you go pick up your things from Oakhaven?

I don’t need them anymore, I say with a shrug. The truth is, there’s very little of me in that cold mausoleum.

You can’t just leave it, Zina insists. “You left with practically nothing, and you even took the blame for cheating and getting pregnant. You should at least take back what’s yours. And your car is still there.”

qar–is

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Lucky Draw

clothes, my books, the small, quic pieces of my life–they need to come back.

And then I remember the most important thing. The photographs of my mother.

A cold knot forms in my stomach. I have to get those back.

Let me know when you’re going back, Zina continues, her eyes sparkling with mischievous plans. “I’ll hire a few top–notch go–go dancers to accompany you. We can’t let it be anything less than grand!”

I glance at her, a wry smile touching my lips. “Thanks, but I don’t need go–go dancers.”

The thought of a parade marching up to Oakhaven is both absurd and, I have to admit, a little tempting. But no, this needs to be dignified.

After dinner, we spill out onto the street, the night air cool

against my skin. We wander through shops and by the time we emerge, the city is draped in darkness, a blanket of twinkling lights.

Are you going back to Urban Lanc? Zina asks, linking her arm

with mine.

I nod. The studio is my sanctuary now, the only place that truly feels like mine.

Then go back with Jace; it’s on the way. She gives him a 267-so–subtle push forward.

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Jace stumbles a step, then touches the back of his head in a gesture of shyness.

“Let’s go,” I say, turning to him after saying goodbye to Zina and Molly. “We’ll catch a taxi.”

As we walk, Jace naturally shifts his position, moving to my left, placing himself between me and the flow of traffic. The silence between us is companionable, but he eventually breaks it, his voice laced with a concern I find touching.

After your divorce, is Cassian giving you a hard time?

He’s worried about retaliation, about the long, vengeful history of the Blackwell family.

He did everything he could before I got the divorce done. Now, we have no relationship. There were no assets to fight over, no alimony to dispute. I walked away with nothing but my freedom and my name. What leverage could he possibly have now?

Jace sighs, “What are your plans for the future?”

The question doesn’t daunt me. For the first time in years, the future is a blank canvas, not a predetermined path. “I’m not worried… I’ll have more time with the team, Dream International is still going strong, and I have projects with the Opal Group. Don’t worry about me being short on cash.”

The financial independence is a suit of armor. I am untouchable.

Jace studies my face, and I see the moment he realizes my smile isn’t forced. He’d been worrying for nothing.

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“And the baby in your belly…?”

His gaze drops for a fraction of a second.

Lucky Draw

My own hand moves instinctively to my stomach, still perfectly flat. The reality of the pregnancy hasn’t fully settled yet; it arrived like a thunderclap in the middle of a hurricane.

But the decision is firm. I’ll raise the child myself. I can register as a single parent now. It’s not a big deal.

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As your belly grows, won’t he suspect something if you stay here?

Jace asks, and a soft, almost imperceptible chuckle escapes me. “No. He thinks it’s someone else’s child.”

It was the final, necessary lie, the one that severed the last thread between us. I had considered the future trouble of showing my pregnancy and had smoothly, coldly, claimed it wasn’t his.

Jace looks at me, and I see a complex mix of relief and the realization that I have organized and handled everything so thoroughly that he isn’t really needed.

But there’s a project over in Eursia in a couple of days that I can’t attend! I might need to trouble you, Zina, and Molly to go.

What project?

I smile. “It’s related to the royal family, but it’s something… just think of it as getting paid to tour Eursia.”

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I can’t go because I promised Mikhail I would accompany him to an event, a commitment I made before my world fell apart. And I trust them. I trust my team.

We reach the curb, and Jace lifts a hand to hail a taxi. Just then, my phone rings.

I pull it from my purse. The screen glows with a name I haven’t seen in years: Liam Stafford.

I only have his number from two years ago, when Cassian was on an extended international trip and couldn’t be reached. I had to contact Liam at Blackwell Industries back then, but we haven’t spoken over a call ever since.

A sense of foreboding makes my thumb hover over the screen for a second before I answer. “Hello?”

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