The Don Tore Up Our Divorce (Gemma and Cassian) novel Chapter 420

Chapter 420
Gemma’s POV

She stands alone, a vision in a floor-length silver gown that catches the light like liquid mercury, making her look like a solitary, ethereal creature washed ashore. Linda.

“Ms. Marino,” she says, her voice a polished chime. “What a coincidence.” Her words are for me, but her eyes are locked on Mikhail, who pointedly surveys the venue’s chandeliers as if studying their structural integrity.

“Ms. Xander,” I reply, forcing polite curiosity. “Are you here alone?” I can’t help the thought: Where’s the husband?

“He had a prior work commitment,” she answers, and I swear there’s a flicker of something—smugness?—in her tone. Maybe it’s my imagination, tinted by what I know.

Mikhail chooses that moment to lean down, his lips brushing my ear, his whisper deliberately intimate for our audience of one. “Shall we head in?”

Linda’s perfectly composed smile tightens almost imperceptibly at the corners. “Let’s go in together,” she says brightly, not waiting for an answer, and glides to position herself on Mikhail’s other side, forming an awkward trio.

Inside the opulent ballroom, Mikhail spares her a glance. “I believe your seating is elsewhere,” he states, his tone devoid of warmth. Charity galas run on a brutal calculus of status. Linda, despite her old-money name, lacks current prominence, especially after years abroad. She doesn’t rank at a table with the General Manager of Dream International.

Disappointment flashes across her face, quickly masked. She takes a steadying breath. “Mikhail,” she says, her voice dropping, layered with a pleading vulnerability. “After the dinner… could you wait for me? There’s something I need to tell you.” She looks at him with such a pitiful, doe-eyed expression it seems a ‘no’ might make her shatter.

Before Mikhail can formulate what will surely be a cold refusal, I step in. “I’ll make sure to remind him! Don’t worry, Ms. Xander!” The promise is out of my mouth before I can think.

Linda’s eyes dart to me, wide with surprise, but the dominant emotion is sheer, unadulterated relief. She gives a small, grateful nod and melts into the crowd to find her assigned seat.

The moment she’s gone, Mikhail turns the full force of his icy glare on me. “Since when did you become the decision-maker for my evenings?”

I give his arm a placating pat. “I’m doing you a favor. You’re leaving for Florisdale soon. There’s a… non-zero chance things could go sideways. Don’t you want to clear the air before you go? Consider this your last chance to say whatever’s been left unsaid for a decade.”

He stares at me, his expression unreadable. The silence stretches. Then he asks, quiet and pointed, “So why don’t you go and have a final chat with Cassian, then?”

The question lands like a dart. I blink, thrown. Why does he always have to pivot back to that?

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify