TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 236

C CHAPTERJAGAT PUT TH 16 MAY

CHAPTER 171: GET OUT OF MY WAY

EMBER’S POV

Three polite rapt on the wood.

“Ember.” Rafael’s voice through the bedroom door, warm and concerned, exactly calibrated. “You haven’t eaten all day. I had the kitchen prepare something light – soup, bread. I’ll leave it outside your door. You don’t have to see me. Just eat.”

I don’t answer. The clink of a tray on the floor is followed by his footsteps retreating.

I don’t touch the tray.

The second knock comes mid–afternoon. Softer, almost tentative!

“I understand you’re angry, and I accept that. You have every reason.” A pause. A sigh that sounds almost frustrated. “But starving yourself in a locked room isn’t going to bring him back, Ember. It’s not going to undo what happened. Come out. Even just for air. I’ll keep my distance.”

He waits three full minutes. I count. Then he leaves.

The third knock comes at sunset. The softness is gone.

“Ember, this is ridiculous.” His voice has dropped the warmth entirely, replaced by something clipped and strained. “Over twelve hours. Bloody hell. You’ve had no food and no water. I am trying – I am TRYING –

to be patient, but you are making it exceptionally difficult.” He stops himself. I hear him breathe through his

nose, hard, once. When he speaks again the smooth/composure has returned, thinner now. “Fine. Take

your time. I’ll be in the lodge.”

His footsteps are harder this time. Faster. Angry.

Between the third and fourth knock, my phone lights up with a notification from my banking app.

I almost ignore it. The phone has been face down for hours and I’ve been avoiding it.

But the notification banner catches my eye and the number on the screen makes me sft down on the bed with my bag half–packed in my hands.

Fifty thousand dollars. Wired from Volkov Industries. And below it, a formal contract notification annual income agreement executed in my name, monthly deposits, indefinite term.

an

Exactly what Knox promised when the arrangement started. Financial independence regardless of what happened between us.

He kept his promise. Even now. Even after “wouldn’t think of it.” Even after Switzerland.

He sat on a plane with his heart ripped out and called someone and made sure I was taken care of

because that is what Knox does.

The anger hits first, right alongside the rip of pain — and why does it feel like both a slap and the taste of

< CHAPTER WEET DAT OF My Way

our final chapter? Why does it feel like I was only ever an agreement and also the proof that I never mattered enough?

But I should be grateful in spite of that. I should be glad he’s building me a safety net, making sure that when I leave I won’t start from zero. He is protecting me from the wreckage of us the only way he knows how from a plane flying in the wrong direction, believing he will never see rne again.

And it hurts. Goddess, it hurts so much I can barely breathe.

I pick up my phone and open his contact. Hover there for a second, speechless. Torn for another.

‘I don’t want your money, Knox.‘

Delete.

‘You can’t just…

Delete.

‘I need you to know that the Celeste thing was…”

Delete.

‘Where are you? Are you okay

Delete.

Please tell me you’re not drinking, please‘

‘I love you and I’m sorry and I didn’t mean it and please come back I know I said don’t come back but I didn’t

mean it please please please‘

Delete. Delete. Delete.

I press my forehead against the nightstand and breathe until the urge to call him subsides into something

I can carry without breaking down completely. The phone goes face down again.

By then, I finish packing. Everything I own in one bag.

When morning comes, I force half a cracker down because my body is failing and I need my legs to hold me. Water. Face splashed. Warmest clothes I own. Then a bag over my shoulder, and the envelope tucked

inside.

I unlock the bedroom door for the first time in hours and step into the hallway.

The fourth knock never came last night.

The tray of soup outside my door is still there, and I step over it and walk through the empty cabin and out the front door into a morning so crisp and clear and blue it feels like the weather is mocking me.

The compound in daylight looks like what it is – a rich man’s playground. I sling my bag over my shoulder and head for the perimeter road.

The plan is simple – get to the nearest town, book a flight to Anchorage, go back to the family house, and figure out the rest from there.

CHAPTER YANT OUT OF A WAY

It’s a miserable plan for a miserable situation but it’s mine and that counts for something.

t consider stopping at the lodge to tell Rafael I’m leaving, but decide against it – he’d only make this more complicated than it already is, and I’m done with complicated men and their complicated feelings about what’s best for me.

I make it maybe forty yards before the first security guard steps into my path.

He’s polite about it. They’re always polite about it.

“Ma’am, the property is currently on lockdown. No one enters or leaves until Mr. Montenegro lifts the restriction.”

“What? Please, I am kindly requesting for an exception. I have to leave as soon as possible.”

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