Joshua stepped closer, his dark eyes locking onto hers. "Then what are we?"
Stella's eyelashes fluttered nervously. "...We?"
"What is our relationship?" he demanded softly.
The sudden intensity of the question sent a spike of panic through her chest.
"W-what?"
Joshua's tone went ice-cold. "You called me by my first name earlier. I mistakenly assumed we had become friends.
Clearly, I was delusional.
My apologies for bothering you."
Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away.
"Wait!" Desperate, Stella lunged forward and grabbed a fistful of his sleeve.
"I didn't mean it like that... I do consider you a friend! I'm just so used to calling you 'Mr. Gardner' that I completely forgot to switch back in the moment!"
She had worked entirely too hard to earn an ounce of his trust. If she let him walk away angry now, tonight would have been a total waste.
Joshua stopped in his tracks, looking down at her hand on his arm. "Is that the truth?"
Stella forced the most earnest, pleading expression she could muster. "Yes! It's just a hard habit to break."
The icy tension in his jaw relaxed slightly. As if a brilliant idea had just struck him, he tilted his head. "Well, since we're officially friends now, you call me Joshua, and I'll call you Star. You don't have a problem with that, do you?"
Stella swallowed hard. "...No."
Joshua checked his watch. "It's getting late. We should go."
"Okay," she agreed quickly.
Once they were settled inside the luxurious cabin of his car, Stella suddenly realized Aurora hadn't followed them.
"Where's Aurora?" she asked.
"Probably off chasing Henley Holloway," Joshua replied with supreme indifference.


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Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: The Ex-Wife's Burning Elegance
Really 🥺 is this the end...
2043 has no wording...
The author needs to bring Joshua and Star back together! And the same people always trying to take her down is getting old...
Oh come on! This is ridiculous, why can’t you let Stella finally be happy with Joshua. I’m done with this story....
anxiously waiting for updates...
Hello! This series has been requested a lot on Reddit, but we’re unable to post the link there ourselves. If you have a Reddit account, we would truly appreciate it if you could help us share the link to this novel to increase its readership. As a thank-you, we will increase the number of free chapters available each day. Thank you so much for your support!...
The same rotation blaming Stella trying to get her destroyed. Isn't the writer tired of writing the same foolishness overand over again? This is exhausting....
Can’t wait to see what joshua will do...
Why would the author of this book do that to Stella? Such cruelty!...
So many chapters are incomplete. Missing pages. Hard to get continuity...