The Billionaire Next Door Is My Ex Husband

Olivia's POV Seven o'clock. Seven thirty. Eight. Eight forty five. He was late. Again. The ice in my drink just melted. I had been staring at it for the past hour and five minutes. I finally picked it up and swirled the liquid watching as the last cube flooded the lemon in the glass. The candle that was supposed to be a romantic symbol between us had already melted too. This was a joke. I was a joke. This was our fifth anniversary and I had prepared very well for it. I had even worn that black dress, the one Nathan had once said made my eye colour pop like the colour of honey. I had ordered the wine he liked, cooked steak for him. I cooked it the way he usually prefered it rare and bleeding. I was breathing, but it felt like i couldn't because the air was thick. I was filled with dying expectations. A fool I was. It was finally nine o clock. I stared at my phone, but there was no calls, no texts, or not even a message from his assistant, Brittany, telling me the usual excuse he usually gave: “Mr Cole is stuck in a meeting,” or a “Unexpected overseas call.” The silence in the room was loud, I could literally hear my breathing echoing in the large living room. This was basically the sound of our marriage. Silence. I used to fill it with noise. I would call his friends, his office, desperately searching for the man who was always just out of reach. I would leave angry voicemails that he would later answer with a single, exhausted word. Just “work.” I didn’t do that anymore. Pride, I had discovered, was a poor substitute for passion, but it was a more durable companion. It didn’t leave you sitting alone at a cold dinner table. I stood up, my joints already hurting from sitting for too long. I carried my plate to the kitchen. The food was untouched. I scraped it into the bin. The steak landed with a soft, final thud. I quietly cleaned the kitchen, wiping down counters that were already spotless. I needed something to keep my already stinging eyes busy, and cleaning the counter top seemed like the simple decision even though the maid's had already cleaned it repeatedly today. I remembered our first anniversary. We were in a tiny rented cabin. At that time, he wasn't yet rich as he was still building his empire and I was still finishing my degree. He cooked for me and burned the pasta, and we ended up eating toast and laughing at the ruined kitchen until my stomach started to hurt. He had feld my face in his hands and told me I was the only solid thing in his world. His anchor. Somewhere along the way, I had become the chain and I felt like I was holding him back. By ten, I was in our bedroom. I had taken off the black dress and the black dress lay in a heap on the floor. I changed into one of his old t-shirts I had stolen years ago. It didn’t smell like him anymore because he didn't wear it. It just smelled like just laundry detergent. Soon, it was a liitlle after midnight and the key turned in the lock, sounding a click in the empty room. The sound was familiar as always. The soft creak of the door, the heavy steps of his Italian leather shoes on the marble floor. I didn’t move from the bed. I just listened to the usual sound of the clink of his keys in the bronze bowl in the parlour as he probably dropped it, the dull thud of his briefcase on the glass table, the quiet pour of a drink in the living room. He thought I was asleep. He always did, so he never bothered to try to talk to me. The bedroom door opened a little. My room was dark, so the light from the hallway spilled into the room. He stood there for a moment, and all I could make out was just his silhouette. I kept my breathing steady and my eyes closed. I could feel him looking at me. It was almost so physical I fould feel his gaze. Then he closed the door and went back to his study. We hadn’t shared a room in more than a year. It started with him coming to bed so late that he’d wake me, and me suggesting he sleep in the guest room “just for a few nights.” A few nights turned into forever. I waited until I heard the soft click of his study door before letting the tears fall. They were hot and quiet, soaking into his old t-shirt. My shoulders trembled. My throat felt so tight. They weren’t angry tears anymore. They were tears of grief. I was mourning the man who used to call me in the middle of the day just to hear my voice. The man who would look at me across a crowded room and smile just for me. I was mourning us. It hurt. I love him so much and it felt like only I was making the effort. I cried till the darkness took over me. The next morning, the sun was too bright. I found him in the kitchen, already dressed in a sharp grey suit He was scrolling through his tablet, a cup of black coffee steaming beside him. “Good morning,” I said, my voice rough. He looked up, his grey eyes moving over my swollen eyes, my scattered hair down to his old t-shirt. For a second, something flickered there. Maybe guilt or something else, before his face went blank again. “Olivia. You’re up early.” “I was waiting for you last night.” He looked down. “I know. I’m sorry. There was a last-minute problem with the Singapore merger. I couldn’t leave.” “It was our anniversary, Nathan.” “I know what it was.” His voice was quiet, final. He took a sip of coffee. “I’ll make it up to you. We’ll go away next weekend. To Milan. Greece. Anywhere you want.” It was the same empty promise, the same thing he always said over and over again. His love existed in the future, never in the present. All he cared about now was just his business and chasing for more and more money. “Don’t bother,” I said, turning to make my own coffee. My hands didn’t shake, which surprised me. The silence between us grew heavy. It was the silence of a thousand unspoken arguments, a thousand lonely dinners, a positive pregnancy test I had once held with shaking hands and a negative one months later that I had cried over alone. I never told him about that. I didn’t feel the need to tell him because we both wanted a kid. My grief had felt private, like my own failure. It just felt like one more thing too painful to talk about. I turned to face him, leaning on the counter. “Nathan, I can’t do this anymore.” He froze, his fingers still on the tablet. “Do what?” “This.” I gestured between us. “The waiting. The silence. It's like living with a ghost. I feel more alone in this marriage than I ever did when I was single.” He finally set the tablet down, his gaze blank, like he was bored. “What are you saying, Olivia?” “I want a divorce.”