The Don Tore Up Our Divorce (Gemma and Cassian) novel Chapter 379

Chapter 379

Gemma’s POV

Linda’s voice takes on a defiant edge as she recounts the past.

“I told his father no,” she says, her chin lifting slightly. “I said Mikhail and I were in love. I told him that even if Mikhail could only call me once a month from some remote base, it would be enough. I was prepared to wait.”

She gulps her remaining coffee in one go.

“But the world had other plans. Before Mikhail even knew about his father’s offer, I was summoned to the Dean’s office. He told me, that this exchange fellowship was a once–in–a–lifetime opportunity for our institution. If I managed to excel, it would be a fast–track to permanent residency. A lifetime settlement.“”

I watch her eyes cloud over, seeing not me, but that younger version of herself standing at a precipice.

She had come to the country on a student visa, a temporary pass to a dream. If she didn’t secure a job or sponsorship after graduation, the door would slam shut. All of it, gone.

“And Mikhail…” she continues, her voice dropping. “e 09:22 enlisted, marriage would be off the table for vears. Without

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marriage, I had no path to stay. All the sacrifice, my family’s life savings poured into my education… it would evaporate. I’d be sent home with nothing but a degree and a broken heart.”

“The Dean was very persuasive,” she says, a trace of bitterness there. “It was only a year, and everyone told me that my world would still be here when you return. That I was young, and a year of global experience would be excellent for my future. He found my weakest point and pressed.”

“A year sounded like nothing more than a brief interlude. So, I agreed…”

She states, the words simple yet heavy with consequence. “I tried to call Mikhail the night before I left. He hadn’t been to

for a week. I can’t describe the frantic, sinking feeling campus as call after call went to voicemail. Ten attempts, all ending in silence. Finally, a classmate told me that Mikhail had gone with his father to a desert training ground. Without a return date set.”

Her eyes are brimming with tears.

“He vanished into the sand, and I was left holding a plane ticket. The choice was brutal: leave for a year without being able to tell him, securing my future but risking our love, or stay, gamble everything on a boy whose own father predicted would have no room for me, and likely be deported.”

09:22

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“I chose the future I could control,” she says, and there is no apology in it, only a weary finality. “I couldn’t bet my entire life, my family’s sacrifice, on a boy and a romance his father had already condemned. I asked my closest friend to explain everything to Mikhail when he got back. I thought… if it was meant to be, we could pick it up in a year. You can see it as a test of fate. But fate, as it turned out, was a poor communicator.”

I raise my eyebrows, and she fills in the rest.

“Upon returning from the desert, he immediately followed his father into active military training. He dropped off the grid of civilian life, only reappearing for essential exams. The friend I trusted never reached out, or maybe the message never got through. From his perspective, I had accepted a prestigious offer and left the country without a word, like I had been waiting for an opportunity to leave him.”

“Everyone thought it was just a university fling,” Linda sighs. “Until I came back for that wedding with my fiancé. Then they too saw the way he looked at me… and we all realized in that moment that he had never moved on, either.”

I feel a profound sadness for them both; a tragedy built on missed connections, paternal pressure, and the brutal math of immigration.

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“Ms. Xander,” I say gently, steering us back to the present.

09:22

Chapter 379

“This is a painful story. But why tell me? What do you need from me?”

She is a married woman now, and this confession feels dangerous.

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She offers a strained, unconvincing smile. “I thought I would take this to my grave. But… since the day of that wedding, since I saw the emerald ring on your finger, I haven’t been able to think straight.”

The ring!

My stomach twists. The Voloshin family emerald.

“I’ve seen that ring before. Mikhail showed it to me once. He was so proud. He said it was the family heirloom for the future Mrs. Voloshin. ‘It’ll be yours someday,‘ he told me. ‘I just wanted you to see it early.“”

The air in the cafe feels too thick to breathe. The ring that was supposed to be hers was sitting on my finger on the day she got married.

“I confronted him at the wedding,” she admits, her composure cracking.

09:22

“I asked him if he had given it to you with the same intentions that he wanted to give it to me. But he said it was none of my

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