My CEO Ex-Husband Begs Me Back

Chapter 2: An Early Divorce Is a Mercy

After shaking off the reporters, Ivy walked into the building and caught fragments of gossip already circulating a stunning new designer had been dropped straight into the design department that morning, and whispers said Nathaniel's new woman from the airport photos had come to shake up the official wife's plans.

Sure enough, when Ivy reached the design floor, a small crowd had gathered around a lavish new office, marveling out loud at how much Nathaniel must have spent to make his new favorite comfortable.

The moment they spotted her, the crowd scattered like startled birds, faces flushing with guilt.

Ivy walked into her own office without a flicker of expression and pulled out the divorce agreement she'd already drafted weeks ago.

Nathaniel had made his choice loudly and publicly. If she didn't move first, she'd look like the unreasonable one, the stand-in who wouldn't let go.

It wasn't the contract driving her now. She simply had no interest in sharing a bed with a man who wasn't hers to begin with, and even less interest in one who wasn't clean.

The door to his office stood slightly open. His secretary's desk sat empty, like everyone in the hallway had known to steer clear.

A woman's voice floated out from inside sweet, syrupy, practiced. "Nathaniel, I could always transfer into design after the divorce goes through. Won't Miss Sinclair be upset if I just show up like this? I already feel awful about it. Maybe you should leave the company with me instead."

Ivy stopped mid-step. She knew that voice. Warm, honeyed, faintly smug it was the same voice from the phone call last night, the one claiming to be pregnant. So she was the woman from the airport.

Devoted to someone, apparently just not to his wife.

Then Nathaniel's voice, flat and dismissive: "Why would she be upset over someone I pay to keep my bed warm?"

Ivy froze in the doorway like a blade had gone straight through her chest, the pain so sharp it blurred her vision for a second.

That was all she'd ever been to him. A transaction. A woman who sold herself for money and asked for nothing in return, not even the dignity of being seen as a person, not even with Wren's face stitched onto hers.

She pushed the door open without knocking. "Excuse the interruption."

Nathaniel's expression darkened instantly at the intrusion. "Who told you that you could walk in here?"

Gone was the soft, agreeable woman he was used to. Her voice came out cold and even. "Your new girlfriend is pregnant, President Wolfe. I came to hand-deliver the divorce papers myself."

He set the papers down slowly, his attention shifting to the woman standing off to the side, visibly flustered.

She had a delicate, palm-sized face, soft curls falling past her collarbone, and a pale yellow belted dress that showed off a slender frame. Her wide, doe-eyed gaze carried exactly the right amount of helpless innocence, the kind that is photographed as pure and untouchable.

Her clothes. Her posture. Even the tilt of her head. All of it lifted straight from Wren.

Ivy had never actually met Wren in person. Everything she knew about her came secondhand, fed to her by Julian Sinclair and Nathaniel so she could play the part convincingly.

But a copy was still a copy. She'd never quite captured that effortless, cultivated grace Wren was known for while this new woman wore it like it came naturally.

The memory of the two of them tangled together in that hotel room surfaced uninvited, and nausea rose in her throat. She turned to go, but Nathaniel caught her wrist and yanked her back around. "What's gotten into you? Who's pregnant?"

Ivy looked past him, straight at the woman now pale with panic. "She called and told me herself. Strange that the father would be the last to know."

"No, I never called anyone. I don't even have Miss Sinclair's number." Chloe Bennett turned to Nathaniel with wide, wounded eyes. "Nathaniel, she's just upset that I took you from her, so she's making things up. Please don't be angry with her."

"Enough with the theatrics. You don't get to put your hands on what's mine." Nathaniel's glare cut back to Ivy. "Remember what you are here. Get out."

"The agreement requires both of us to stay faithful for the length of this marriage, Nathaniel. You broke that first, which gives me every right to walk away." Something bitter settled in Ivy's chest. Three years of marriage, undone in an instant by one stranger's flimsy accusation. Better to end it now than drag it out any longer.

She pulled her wrist free, calm, unbothered, refusing to shrink or posture. "I'll finish the handover properly and be out as soon as it's done."

The door shut behind her with a sharp c***k.

Nathaniel stood there, jaw tight, disbelief written across his face. Since when did she have the nerve to speak to him like that?

Chloe, guilt creeping in, grabbed his arm and rushed to explain. "Nathaniel, I swear I never called and said I was pregnant. Do you think she's wanted out of this marriage for a while now, and just used me as the excuse?"

Nathaniel's gaze dropped to the torn agreement on his desk. For one unguarded second, something like confusion, even helplessness crossed his face before he caught himself and smoothed it away.

He'd drafted that agreement himself, years ago, specifically to keep Ivy from getting too entangled with the Sinclair family's business. A clean exit clause, nothing more.

But three years of watching her play the obedient, quietly graceful Mrs. Wolfe, wearing Wren's face without complaint, had let him forget the agreement existed at all.

She was a substitute. A favor the Sinclairs owed him, wrapped in Wren's features. What right did she have to lecture him about fidelity?

What right did she have to defy him at all?

He grabbed the torn agreement off the desk, something violent flickering behind his eyes. "Whether this marriage ends is my decision. Not hers."

Chloe's expression flickered. Was it possible Nathaniel still had feelings for Wren, even now?

A knock interrupted them. His assistant, Marcus Doyle, stepped in with an update on the paparazzi situation. "Fortunately, Mrs. Wolfe handled the reporters this morning, firm but careful not to burn any bridges. Several of the accounts that ran the story already posted retractions. No real damage to the brand."

He shot Chloe a pointed look before continuing. "That said we swept the airport for the press in advance that night. There shouldn't have been anyone positioned to get a shot like that. Given the angle, it looks like whoever took it was already inside our own security perimeter."

Chloe's fists curled at her sides, though her face stayed carefully worried. "You don't think a rival planted someone, do you? Marcus, you need to find out who on the team can't be trusted."

"Handle it," Nathaniel snapped, waving them both out, more unsettled by the silence that followed than he wanted to admit.

Alone, he pulled up the security footage Marcus had sent Ivy at the curb that morning, composed, sharp, dismantling a reporter's accusation without breaking a sweat. He watched it twice, eyes narrowing.

How many versions of Ivy Hart had he never bothered to notice?

---

Ivy didn't waste time on anything that wasn't useful anymore. Back at her desk, she started transferring her open projects and called a property agent to arrange her move.

Chloe appeared a while later, setting down a cup of coffee, eyes lowered like she meant it. "Director Hart, I'm sorry. Whatever's between Nathaniel and me I never meant for it to wreck your marriage."

Ivy cut her off without looking up. "You're not pregnant, and you clearly don't want to spend your life as someone's mistress. So why not help me get the divorce finalized instead?"

The color drained from Chloe's face. She'd come here to flaunt the relationship, to bait Wren sorry, Ivy into a public scene so she could paint herself as the wronged party and drive Nathaniel further into her arms out of jealousy.

Instead, the woman in front of her looked almost bored. Chloe's neck flushed red with frustration. "Why cling to an empty marriage? Your husband vanished for two months without a word to you. Doesn't it even cross your mind that he's moved on that he never loved you at all?"

"I don't spend much time wondering about it," Ivy said, gathering her files. "Mostly I've been wondering if he's dead." She had no patience left to waste on Nathaniel's new girlfriend. Whatever happened here from now on wasn't her problem anymore.

"Stop pretending you don't care!" Chloe's composure cracked, her voice dropping into something sharper, meaner. "Nathaniel only ever kept you around to warm his bed. I'm the one he actually loves now!"

Ivy paused just long enough to look at her, faintly amused. "Did that confidence come with a discount code? He doesn't love you, he loves how much you look like Wren Sinclair used to. You didn't dress like this by accident."

She walked out without hurrying, unbothered, almost breezy about it.

Chloe stomped her foot the second the door closed, furious and baffled in equal measure. "Everyone kept telling me Wren Sinclair was soft, sweet, and easy to walk all over. So where was that woman just now?"