The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Claim

Chapter 11

Knox

Becca stretches naked against me, with a kind of lazy satisfaction that suggests she believes this moment belongs to her, that the space she occupies has already been secured in a way that doesn’t need to be questioned.

I let her move the way she wants, let her trace patterns across my tattooed skin that don’t mean anything beyond the fact that they are expected, because this – this arrangement, this rhythm – has always been easy to maintain. There are no complications here, no unpredictable reactions. Becca knows her place, and she always has.

The bedroom is too warm, carrying the faint scent of her sickly sweet perfume. I lean back slightly, watching her with the kind of detached awareness that has nothing to do with desire and everything to do with control.

“You’ve been distracted,” Becca murmurs, her hand resting lightly against my chest. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve been busy,” I reply, not bothering to elaborate. “And what I do is none of your fucking business.”

Suddenly, my cell phone rings, and Becca shifts slightly. Annoyance flashes bright across her face, but I’m already reaching for the phone, already glancing at the screen, and I see that it’s my lawyer calling. I answer without hesitation:

“What?” I snap.

“Mr. McVale,” he begins, his tone measured, careful in a way that immediately registers, because caution from him usually means something hasn’t aligned the way it should. “I’ve just been on the phone with your wife’s legal representative.”

A slow smile pulls at the corner of my mouth. “What does she want?” I ask, already anticipating the direction of it, already preparing to decide how much I’m willing to concede in order to bring things back into line.

“Nothing,” he says. “She signed the papers.”

The words land, but they don’t settle. Not immediately.

“What?”

“She’s agreed to the divorce,” he continues. “She’s not contesting the terms of the prenuptial agreement.”

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“Explain that,” I say, my tone flattening.

“She’s accepted the standard payout,” he replies. “Ten thousand per year of marriage, for three years total. She hasn’t requested additional compensation. No negotiations, no amendments.”

Clam

For a moment, the silence stretches in a way that I don’t like, because it doesn’t follow the pattern I’ve already established, doesn’t move toward the outcome I’ve already accounted for.

“When did she sign?” I ask.

“This morning. The documents were couriered to us this afternoon, and I called her lawyer to confirm everything.” He pauses. “She hasn’t contacted you? No attempt to revisit the terms

or -”

“No,” I cut him off. “She hasn’t.”

There’s been nothing. I haven’t seen or heard from her since she got whisked away in the ambulance, and the only reason that I knew she wasn’t dead is because Becca kept tabs. But Zara’s silence means… she isn’t playing the same game. There’s no leverage or pressure from her, no attempt to turn this into something else.

My grip tightens around the phone, because this – this deviation, this fucking refusal to engage in the way she always has – creates a gap in the structure I’ve maintained. And I don’t tolerate gaps.

“I’ll deal with it,” I say, my voice colder now, more precise, before ending the call.

“She signed?” Becca asks, sitting up now, her tone lighter than it should be, curiosity edging into something sharper. “It’s all done?”

I don’t answer immediately, but she knows it’s true. Of course she does; she heard every

word.

“Well,” she says, her voice softening, satisfaction threading through it in a way that immediately grates on me. “That makes things easier.”

Easier.

The word lands wrong, because this was never supposed to be about ease. It was about structure, and control, and balance.

“How?” I ask, my tone sharper now, though I don’t raise my voice. “How is it easier?”

“She’s out of the picture,” Becca replies, as though it’s obvious, as though this is the natural conclusion of everything that’s been building. “No more arguments. No more pretending. It’s

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Chapter 11

just us now.”

Just us.

Chappy

Her hand moves to her stomach as she says it, almost unconsciously, the reminder of what she carries settling into the space between us. In her mind, the baby was something that was meant to anchor her position, to solidify her in my future.

“She wasn’t supposed to leave,” I say, the words coming out lower than I intend, edged with something that doesn’t sit comfortably in my chest. “She wasn’t supposed to sign.”

Becca stills. “What?”

“She was supposed to adjust,” I say, reaching for my clothes, my thoughts aligning as I move. “That bitch was supposed to accept the situation, and stay exactly where she was. Nothing was supposed to change.”

Becca’s expression tightens slightly, something defensive surfacing in those clear blue eyes. “She signed the papers, Knox. I thought that’s what you wanted when you sent me over there to give them to her!”

No. No, it isn’t what I wanted.

And the realization lands with a clarity that cuts through everything else: I didn’t want her gone, I wanted her contained. In place, and where she had always been, but with the full knowledge that I was with Becca. I wanted Zara humiliated and diminished… but completely paralyzed by her pathetic love for me.

“You have me,” Becca says, her voice softer now, but edged with something sharper beneath it, something that wants reassurance, that wants confirmation she hasn’t already lost ground. “You have me and the baby. We’re the future for you – we’re your future!”””

“I haven’t signed the papers,” I tell her brutally. “And I won’t be pushed into some fucking white picket fence life with you, just because you got knocked up.”

“You – you haven’t signed?” Her voice is rising to a wail now. “But why -”

Instead of answering her, I pull on my cut, already moving toward the door, the need to reestablish control pushing through me with a precision that leaves no room for delay.

“Knox -”

But I don’t stop. I can’t stop, because something has shifted. Something has moved way the fuck out of place in a way that won’t correct itself naturally.

And for the first time since my meek little wife flatlined on the frozen ground and got taken

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Chapter 11

Cham

away in an ambulance, I understand that having only Becca here, in this room, in this life that I’ve constructed so carefully is not what I want at all.

And I intend to make Zara give me exactly what I fuck want… like she always has.

5

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