Chapter 9 - Watching
810 Words
*Ethan – pov*
This town smelled like wet trees and manual labour. I hated it immediately.
There was mud on my expensive shoes. Pickup trucks everywhere and men built like refrigerators walking around in work boots like some kind of mountain-man cult.
I sat inside the rental SUV across from the Rosewood estate, fingers tightening around the steering wheel as workers moved in and out of the massive old house.
At first I thought the place looked creepy.
Now?
Now it looked expensive.
Restored properly, this property would be worth millions.
Of course Elara would stumble into another success. That had always been her talent. She saw potential and value before anyone else did and opportunity always seem to find her.
I would never admit it to anyone, but I owed a lot of my success to Elara.
I leaned back slowly in the seat and watched her walk across the front lawn holding rolled-up blueprints against her chest.
Even from a distance she looked incredible. Not the exhausted version of her I’d gotten used to during the last few years.
This Elara looked…alive!
It was unsettling because she was supposed to come back. That’s how these things worked with us. She got angry and overreacted. Eventually she calmed down after an expensive gift or dinner.
But instead she filed for divorce without hesitation.
No screaming.
No bargaining.
No emotional breakdown.
Just done.
The problem was that she clearly didn’t understand what walking away had done to me.
Investors were nervous, questions were multiplying and rumours started spreading.
A wife leaving quietly after discovering infidelity looked bad enough.
But whispers about why she left?
Disastrous.
Elara made me look stable and people trusted stability. Truth was, without her everything was starting to crack.
My phone buzzed again.
Another message from an investor delaying negotiations.
Fan-f*****g-tastic.
I scrubbed a hand across my face and looked back toward the estate.
That’s when he appeared.
Tall.
Dark hair.
Built like he belonged in one of those ridiculous fantasy shows women obsessed over.
The construction guy.
Raiden.
Even his name annoyed me.
The man hovered around Elara constantly.
He seemed protective in a way that immediately made my skin crawl.
And Elara…
God, Elara actually smiled around him sometimes.
Not often but enough. That irritated me more than anything else because she barely smiled around me toward these last few months.
A sharp pulse of anger moved through my chest as I watched him carry food boxes into the house like some domesticated lumberjack fantasy.
What the hell was this?
Three weeks ago she was my wife. Now she was playing house in the woods with some broad-shouldered contractor?
I stepped out of the SUV before I could think better of it.
Rain misted lightly through the trees while I moved closer to the house, staying near the unfinished side of the property where construction equipment blocked visibility.
Voices drifted faintly through the open kitchen windows. I couldn’t make out the words, only tones. Soft, teasing, intimate tones that twisted something ugly low in my stomach.
Then I saw them. Elara sitting on the kitchen counter. Raiden standing way too close to her.
My jaw tightened instantly. I should walk in there. I should remind her exactly who she belonged with because clearly she was having some kind of breakdown if she thought this, whatever this was, made more sense.
Then she moved fast enough that even I looked surprised.
She slid off the counter, grabbed his face and kissed him.
Everything inside me went ice cold.
The world narrowed violently. My vision tunnelling. I felt heat and rage.
She was kissing him like she wanted him. Like she chose him. The man’s hands settled instinctively on her hips and something savage crossed his face for half a second.
Something possessive enough to make even me hesitate.
Then Elara jerked backward suddenly.
Shocked.
Panicked.
Good. At least one of them still had sense but the damage was already done.
She wasn’t confused anymore. She was moving on. And if she moved on publicly?
If people saw her with him while the divorce was still active?
Investors would assume the marriage collapsed because she cheated.
This could be useful. Very useful.
A slow smile pulled at my mouth for the first time in days. Maybe I’d been approaching this wrong.
Maybe I didn’t need to win Elara back emotionally. Maybe I just needed leverage.
My phone buzzed again.
This time from an unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
Instead, I answered quietly.
“Yes?”
Silence greeted me briefly.
Then a deep male voice spoke.
“I hear you’re looking for help handling a problem.”
Every instinct I possessed sharpened instantly.
“Who is this?”
“That depends,” the voice replied calmly. “How badly do you want your wife back?”
- Writer
