Dear Ex-Husband, Watch Me Love Again

Chapter 16

Lucas heard every word.

He was still standing by the car when Katherine turned and told everyone outside to call her by her first name rather than calling her by his last name.

He stood there with his hand still on the door he had just closed, annoyance moving through his chest, hot and fast.

This was the woman who had cried when she got her new passport after their wedding.

Who had called her mother from the registry office just to say ‘I'm Katherine Carter now’ with so much happiness in her voice that even the clerk behind the desk had smiled.

She had loved his name. Had worn it like something she was proud of.

But now, she had just told a room full of executives not to use it.

He pushed himself off the car and walked toward the entrance.

The group turned when they heard his footsteps, and Lucas arranged his face quickly, the easy confident smile he had spent years perfecting in courtrooms and boardrooms and every room where it mattered how you looked.

"I'm sorry," he said warmly, extending his hand to the nearest executive. "I should have come over sooner. Lucas Carter, Katherine's husband."

The man shook his hand with genuine enthusiasm. "Mr Carter, it's a pleasure. You should be very proud. We have been looking forward to having Katherine join us for some time now."

"As have I," Lucas said. "She belongs here."

Another executive, an older woman with silver hair and a firm handshake, looked at him with approving eyes. "It says a lot about you, Mr Carter, that you are here today. You would be surprised how many men in your position would feel differently about a situation like this."

"How do you mean?" Lucas asked, keeping his tone curious and open.

"A wife returning to a powerful family business." She said it simply. "Some men find that threatening. They prefer their wives to remain in a certain space." She shook her head. "Men like that hold their wives back and call it love."

Lucas laughed. "That has never been me. Katherine's success has always been my priority. All I have ever wanted is to see her rise to her highest potential." He glanced over at Katherine beside him. "She deserves every good thing."

Katherine looked back at him and smiled.

It was a perfect smile. Nobody in that courtyard would have seen anything wrong with it.

Lucas felt it anyway.

They were led inside together, and the lobby received them. Staff members greeted them as they passed. A few bowed slightly.

Katherine moved through the building like she had visited it a thousand times.

Lucas stayed close beside her and said the right things to the right people, keeping his smile on—The picture of a perfect husband.

They were shown upstairs by one of the staff, down a carpeted corridor and toward a corner office at the end of the hall. The young woman who was guiding them stopped at the door and pushed it open with a small smile.

"Your office, Ms Whitmore."

Lucas noticed she didn't say Carter either.

Then he noticed something else.

Standing inside the office, half hidden behind the door, were Katherine's parents. Her mother was already pressing her hands together with barely contained excitement, and her father was holding a small confetti popper that went off the moment Katherine stepped through the door.

"Surprise!" her mother said, the word dissolving immediately into laughter.

Katherine stopped walking. For a moment she just stood there, and then the genuine surprise on her face broke into joy. Lucas watched her cross the room to hug her mother tightly.

"Mum." She laughed, pulling back to look at her. "What are you doing here?"

"Did you think we would let your first day pass without being here?" Her mother cupped her face with both hands for a moment before letting go. "We have been waiting for this for years."

Her father stepped forward and put his arms around her briefly. "We are proud of you," he said simply, and the way he said it carried the weight of everything that hadn't been said between them for a long time.

Katherine blinked quickly. "Don't make me cry on my first day."

Her father laughed and released her. Then he looked over at Lucas, who had come to stand just inside the doorway, his expression warm and his posture relaxed, the picture of a man who was exactly where he wanted to be.

"Lucas," her father said with a nod. "You did well, coming today. It matters to her even when she doesn't say so."

"She matters to me," Lucas said. "It wasn't even a question."

Her father looked at him for a moment, then clapped him once on the shoulder. "You’re a good man."

Lucas smiled but said nothing else. Deep down, his chest burned with anger but he couldn’t voice his feelings, not in front of the Whitmores..

Her father glanced at his watch. "We won't keep you. I know you have your own office to get back to and Katherine has plenty to get started on here." He looked between them. "Go on. Say your goodbyes."

Lucas moved toward Katherine. She was standing near her new desk, her mother beside her, both of them looking at something on the surface of it.

He came up close and she turned to face him and for a moment they just looked at each other. From the outside, it would look like they were in love but they knew it was far from that.

He put his arms around her and pulled her in, and when his lips were close enough to her ear that no one else could hear, he said quietly, "I know we're not okay right now. But I'm doing this for them."

She started to pull back to look at him, to ask what exactly he meant by that, but before she could fully make sense of it he had already closed the distance and kissed her.

It wasn't a quick kiss. It was deliberate, the kind meant to be seen.

Katherine went very still.

She did not push him away. Her parents were three feet behind her and she could already hear her mother making a soft sound that meant she was moved. So, she stood there and let it happen.

She hated it.

All she could think about was the fact that he had kissed Erica with those same lips.

When he pulled back she looked at him and whatever he saw in her eyes made something flicker in his, though he recovered fast.

Her mother pressed a hand to her chest. "You two," she said softly, shaking her head. "I look at you and I cannot believe I once tried to call off that engagement."

Lucas turned to her with a laugh that came out easy and genuine. "All's well that ends well," he said warmly.

Katherine looked at him and scoffed lightly. “Indeed, Lucas. Indeed.”