My Ex-Husband’s Boss Wants Me

Chapter2

The Stranger Who Watched Her Break

Elara's POV

The whiskey burned going down, but not enough. Not nearly enough to erase the last two hours. I signaled the bartender for another.

"Rough night?"

The voice came from my right. Deep, measured, like every word had been weighed before being spoken. I turned to face the man who'd been watching me.

Up close, he was even more striking. Sharp jawline. Dark hair that looked deliberately unstyled. Eyes so dark they were almost black, fixed on me with an intensity that should have made me uncomfortable. But that night, discomfort was the least of my problems.

"You could say that," I replied, surprised my voice worked at all.

He stood, picked up his drink, and moved to the stool beside mine. Not touching, but close enough that I caught the scent of expensive cologne. Something woody and clean that didn't belong in a place like this.

"Rowan Blackwell." He didn't offer his hand. Just stated his name like it should mean something.

"Elara." I paused. "Just Elara."

Because I didn't know what my last name was anymore. Monroe had never really been mine. And going back to Hayes felt like admitting defeat.

"Just Elara," he repeated, and something in the way he said it made my name sound like a secret. "What brings you here, soaked to the bone, barefoot, clutching what looks like legal documents?"

I glanced down at the crumpled envelope still in my hand. The papers inside had begun to blur from rain and rage. "You're observant."

"Part of the job."

"What job is that?"

"The kind that teaches you to notice when someone's world is ending."

I laughed. It came out bitter, broken. "Ending. That's one word for it." I drained my second glass, signaled for a third. The bartender hesitated, glanced at Rowan. Rowan gave a subtle nod, and suddenly the drink appeared.

That was strange. But everything was strange that night.

"I was married this morning," I heard myself say. "Well, I thought I was married. Turns out I was just... convenient. Useful. Until I wasn't."

Rowan didn't interrupt. Didn't offer empty platitudes or sympathy. He just listened, his dark eyes steady on mine. There was something disarming about being heard without being judged. Without being told how I should feel or what I should do.

"Five years," I continued, the words spilling out like whiskey pouring into my glass. "Five years of being the perfect supportive wife. And tonight, at his big celebration, his mother handed me the divorce papers he'd already signed. Everyone knew. The whole family. Probably half the people there. Everyone except me."

"He's a coward," Rowan said simply.

"He's successful. That's what matters, apparently."

"Success built on using people isn't success. It's just expensive cowardice."

I turned to look at him fully. "You don't even know him."

"I know men like him." Something cold flashed in Rowan's eyes. "Men take what they need and discard what they don't. Men who measure worth in usefulness."

The third drink arrived. I reached for it, but my hand was shaking. From cold, from shock, from the reality that was starting to settle into my bones.

"Hey, beautiful."

A different voice. Slurred. Too close. A man stumbled up beside me, breathing beer and bad decisions into my space. "You look like you could use some company."

"I'm fine," I said, leaning away.

"Don't be like that." His hand landed on my shoulder. "I'm just being friendly."

"She said she's fine." Rowan's voice hadn't changed volume, but something in it made the temperature drop. "Remove your hand."

The drunk man laughed, looking Rowan up and down. "Or what?"

Rowan didn't move. Didn't even tense. He just looked at the man with the kind of calm that came before violence. "You really want to find out?"

I watched the drunk man's face change. Whatever he saw in Rowan's expression made him take a step back, then another. His hand dropped from my shoulder like I'd burned him.

"Crazy b***h wasn't worth it anyway," he muttered, retreating to the other end of the bar.

I released a breath I hadn't known I was holding. "Thank you."

"You shouldn't have to thank someone for basic decency."

I noticed the bartender watching Rowan with something like wariness. A woman at a corner table looked away quickly when Rowan glanced in her direction. Even the drunk man kept his distance now, shooting nervous looks our way.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I told you. Rowan Blackwell."

"That's a name, not an answer."

His mouth curved slightly. Not quite a smile. "What do you want to know?"

"Why is everyone here afraid of you?"

"Are you afraid of me?"

I considered this. I should have been. A strange man in a dive bar, who commanded the room without saying a word, who looked at me like he could see straight through to my broken pieces. But fear was surprisingly absent.

"No," I admitted.

"Then that's all that matters tonight."

He was right. That night, nothing else mattered. My marriage was over. My life as I knew it was gone. I was sitting in a bar with a stranger who might be dangerous, and I couldn't bring myself to care.

The whiskey was working now. Warming my blood, blurring the edges of my pain. I turned toward Rowan, really looked at him. The sharp lines of his face. The controlled power in the way he held himself. The mouth that looked like it rarely smiled but might be devastating when it did.

"I don't want to think anymore," I said quietly.

"Then don't."

"I don't want to feel."

"Understandable."

"I want to forget. Just for tonight. I want to forget I was stupid enough to love someone who never loved me back." I met his eyes. "Can you help me forget?"

The air between us shifted. Charged. Rowan's gaze intensified, traveling from my eyes to my lips and back again. For the first time since I'd been watching him, I saw hesitation.

"Elara." My name was a warning. "You don't want this."

"Don't tell me what I want." There was heat in my voice now, matching the heat building low in my stomach. "I'm so tired of people telling me what I want, what I need, what I should do. For once, I'm choosing. I'm choosing this. I'm choosing you. Just for tonight."

"You're hurt. Vulnerable."

"I'm furious," I corrected. "And reckless. And so done with being careful." I leaned closer. Close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his body. "Unless you're not interested."

His jaw tightened. "That's not the issue."

"Then what is it?"

Rowan was quiet for a long moment, studying my face like he was memorizing it. Or deciding something. When he spoke, his voice was low, rough. "If I do this, I don't do half measures. Even for one night."

My heart pounded. "Good. Neither do I."

He signaled the bartender, pulled out his wallet. Bills appeared on the bar, far more than our drinks cost. Then he stood, offering me his hand.

I stared at it. This was the moment. The choice. I could walk away. Find a cab somehow. Go back to my empty apartment and my empty life and cry until morning.

Or I could take his hand. Step into whatever this was. Let myself break differently than the Monroes had broken me.

I placed my hand in his. His fingers closed around mine, warm and certain.

We walked out of the bar together. The rain had stopped, leaving the street slick and gleaming under streetlights. A car waited at the curb. Black, sleek, expensive. A driver stood beside it, opening the back door without a word.

"Last chance," Rowan said, still holding my hand. "I can have him take you anywhere you want to go."

I looked at the open car door. For the interior, it probably cost more than everything I owned. At the man beside me who was more clear than he appeared. Dangerous in ways I didn't understand.

I should have been smart. Careful. Safe. But I was so tired of it. I stepped into the car.

Rowan slid in beside me. The door closed. The driver pulled away from the curb, and I watched the bar disappear behind us. Along with the last piece of the woman I used to be.

I didn't know where we were going. I didn't know who Rowan Blackwell really was. I didn't know what tomorrow would bring. But that night, I didn't care. That night, I was choosing the fall.