Semua Bab He Wants Me More After Divorce: Bab 91 - Bab 100

Harrison’s POVThree days I’d been parked outside her building like some kind of criminal.Different spots each time. Across the street the first morning, further down the block the second. Today I’d found a space with a clear sightline to the front entrance, half-hidden behind a delivery van, and I sat there with the engine off and my coffee going cold in my hand.She hadn’t been to the office once. Karl had released some polished statement about their “separation”—mutual, amicable, the usual corporate language designed to say nothing while sounding like everything—and Estelle had simply vanished.Working remotely, apparently. Hiding, more accurately.I checked my phone. Still blocked.The building’s glass doors swung open and my whole body locked up.Estelle came out holding Chloe’s hand, both of them bundled in coats, Chloe’s backpack bouncing as she skipped along beside her mother.Estelle looked smaller than I remembered. Thinner. She had sunglasses on despite the grey sky and she

Estelle’s POVI sat on the floor with my back against the door and my knees pulled up to my chest and I shook.I did not cry. Not yet. Just shook, my whole body vibrating like something inside me had come loose and was rattling around with nowhere to go.He knew. He knew about the marriage.But I’d lied about why. Lied about Chloe. Lied about Karl’s parents and the Catholic ceremony and the fear of signing papers—well, that part wasn’t entirely a lie. My hands really did shake.He’d believed me. Mostly. The guilt on his face had been so total, so devastated, that for one sick moment I’d felt powerful. I’d watched Harrison Emerson crumble over what he’d done to me and some terrible part of me had enjoyed it.Then the guilt hit.He’d asked about Chloe and I’d looked him in the eye and told him Karl was her father and the lie had come out smooth and easy and I hated myself for how good I was at this.Because if Harrison knew the truth—if he found out Chloe was his—he’d demand a paternity

Harrison’s POVFour days since the parking lot and I was losing my mind.I’d told Estelle I loved her, and she’d told me to leave her alone.I couldn’t.I’d driven past her coffee shop three times this week. Sat in the park across from Chloe’s playground for an hour yesterday, pretending to read emails. Walked past Karl’s building twice for no reason at all.I knew it was obsessive. I knew it was unhealthy. I knew that if anyone described this behaviour to me about someone else, I’d tell them to get help.I didn’t care.Karl’s company was hosting a dinner. Potential investors, industry contacts, the kind of event that required suits and small talk and handshakes that meant money. My company was still their supplier—Capella’s investment hadn’t changed that—so the invitation was legitimate.I told Lyndsey specifically not to come. Didn’t explain why. She’d looked at me with that particular expression she’d been wearing for weeks—part hurt, part desperate, part calculating—and I’d walked

Estelle’s POVI drove home too fast and nearly ran a red light on Maple Street because I wasn’t watching the road, I was watching my own hands on the steering wheel and hating them for what they’d done twenty minutes ago.They’d grabbed Harrison’s shirt. They’d pulled him closer. They’d twisted into his hair while his mouth was on mine and they’d held on like I was drowning and he was the only solid thing left.I wiped my lips with the back of my hand for the fourth time since leaving the venue. I could still taste him. Wine and mint and Harrison, and no amount of wiping was getting rid of it.Daisy had Chloe at my apartment. I let myself in quietly, found Chloe already asleep in her bed and Daisy dozing on the sofa with the TV on mute.“How was it?” Daisy mumbled, half-awake.“Fine,” I lied. “Go home. I’m okay.”She squinted at me, then at my smeared lipstick, and I turned away before she could ask. She gathered her things and left without pressing, which meant she’d press tomorrow in

Harrison’s POVI barely slept. Maybe an hour total, broken up into ten-minute stretches between bouts of staring at the ceiling and replaying every single thing that had happened at Estelle’s apartment.The fighting. The sex. The crying.God, the crying. I’d sat on her sofa and sobbed while she rubbed my back, and the memory of it made me want to put my fist through the wall.I was a grown man. The CEO of a conglomerate. I’d cried in front of my ex-wife on her living room floor next to our scattered clothing.But she’d stayed. She hadn’t walked away or told me to pull myself together. She’d sat beside me and put her hand on my back and said I know you are when I’d apologized, and her voice had been so gentle that it almost made everything worse.She still kept pushing me away with one hand and pulling me back with the other.I loved her. She wouldn’t have me. And I had no idea what to do about either of those things.I was sitting at the kitchen table at 8 a.m. with coffee I hadn’t tou