Too Late for Sorry, Mr. Billionaire (Chasing my Wife Back) novel Chapter 141

THE plan had a particular elegance that Amelia appreciated, not because it was complicated, but because it wasn't. The most effective traps, she had always believed, were the ones that required the target to build their own cage. All you had to do was hand them the materials and step back.

Amelia had been the one to suggest the cheques. They were sitting in Sandra's living room on a Tuesday evening, wine untouched on the table between them, both women leaning over a notepad where Amelia had been sketching the outline of what she was beginning to think of as a controlled demolition.

"He is going to ask me for money again this week," Sandra said. "He always builds up to it the same way. Very attentive for a few days, lots of compliments, lots of making me feel like the most interesting woman in the room. And then… the ask." She said it without bitterness, which Amelia found more chilling than anger would have been. "He is very good at it."

"He is," Amelia agreed. "He has had practice. A lot of it."

"So when he asks," Sandra continued, "I will give him a signed and dated cheque with the full amount he has been hinting at." She paused. "But the catch is that it will be drawn on an account I'm in the process of closing."

Amelia looked at her.

"How long does a closure take?"

"Long enough," Sandra said simply.

Amelia was quiet for a moment. Then she picked up her pen and wrote: *Cheque — Sandra. Timeline: two weeks before he attempts to cash.*

"I will do the same," Amelia said. "He is going to come back to me for the fifteen thousand he asked for last week of which I told him to take a loan. I will tell him I have sorted it. Write him a cheque that looks very real." She tapped the pen against the notepad. "He won't rush to the bank. That is not how he operates. He will sit on it. He will use it as currency in his own mind and tell himself the money is essentially already there, plan around it, probably tell people about it." She looked at Sandra. "He will carry it around for weeks feeling like a man whose problems are solved."

"And then?" Sandra asked.

"And then we pick the moment," Amelia said. "Something public. Something he can't recover from in the room." She thought for a moment. "He has been asking you to dinner?"

"Every week."

"Let him plan something. Something expensive... he will want to impress you, especially once he thinks the money situation is handled. Let him book somewhere grand." Amelia looked at her steadily. "And then make sure the bill arrives when his cards don't work and his cheques have bounced, and there is nowhere to turn."

Sandra looked at her for a long moment.

"You have thought about this."

"I think about most things carefully," Amelia said.

"And you want it recorded."

"I want everything recorded," Amelia confirmed. "Not for revenge, but clarity when it gets out there in the public. So that when it's over, there is no version of events he can rewrite."

Sandra reached for her wine finally and took a slow sip.

"You know what surprises me most about you?" she said.

"What?"

"You are not angry." Sandra tilted her head slightly. "I keep waiting for the anger. I'm angry and he didn't even propose to me. But you... you just seem..." She waved a hand as she trailed off.

"Like I have made peace with it?" Amelia helped.

Sandra nodded slowly. "Yes. Exactly that."

"Anger is useful," Amelia said, "when it powers action. When it starts powering the wrong things, it becomes a liability." She closed the notepad. "I decided what I wanted the outcome to be, and I'm working toward it. The anger is there. I just don't let it drive me into doing things recklessly."

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