Goodbye Ex Husband - The Real Heiress Has Returned

Chapter 3

Sebastian Lloyd woke up in the late morning, a dull, throbbing ache radiating behind his temples. The unfamiliar, slightly stale smell of a commercial motel room filled his nostrils. He sat up on the edge of the mattress, realizing with a spike of annoyance that his shirt had been removed during the night.

Before he could piece together the timeline of the previous evening, the door opened softly. Vivienne stepped into the room wearing a sleek silk blouse, balancing a tray with a steaming cup of dark coffee and a plate of warm pastries.

“You’re finally awake,” Vivienne said, her voice dripping with gentle sweetness as she set the tray down on the bedside table. “I brought you breakfast. You were completely exhausted last night after we left the emergency room.”

Sebastian rubbed his eyes, his brows knitting into deep, irritated lines. He reached for his shirt, which was folded neatly over a nearby chair, and began buttoning it up with practiced efficiency.

“Why are you doing this, Vivienne?” he asked, his voice low and devoid of warmth. “It’s not your responsibility to play caretaker. And why are we in a motel? We should have gone straight back to the city.”

Vivienne lowered her eyes, putting on a faint, wounded expression. “My foot was hurting so badly after I twisted it, and you fell asleep in the car from working forty-eight hours straight. I didn’t want to disturb Seraphina by bringing you home late at night. I know how sensitive she gets about me.”

“She has no reason to be sensitive about anything,” Sebastian muttered, though even he could hear how hollow the words sounded.

“Of course not,” Vivienne agreed quickly, pouring the coffee into a cup and handing it to him. “I only meant that some wives don’t understand the demands of a company like yours. It’s not fair to you, having to manage her feelings on top of everything else.”

Sebastian paused, his fingers resting on his cuffs. A subtle sigh escaped his lips. The mention of his wife brought a sudden, familiar wave of annoyance to his chest.

“Seraphina won’t care,” he said, waving a dismissive hand as he reached for his watch. “She spends all her time at home anyway. In fact, I’ll have my assistant bring your luggage over to the villa later today. You can stay in the guest wing for a couple of weeks until your ankle heals. Having you around will give Seraphina something productive to do, she likes cooking and managing the house.”

“Are you sure?” Vivienne asked, turning her face slightly to mask the sharp, triumphant smirk that flashed across her lips before looking back at him with wide, innocent eyes. “I don’t want to come between you and your wife, Sebastian. Some women get jealous so easily.”

“If she has a problem with it, she can take it up with me,” Sebastian snapped, tightening his tie. “You’re my chief executive secretary and a long-time friend. If she can’t understand basic professional courtesy, that is her issue, not yours.”

“You’re too generous,” Vivienne murmured, stepping closer and smoothing an invisible wrinkle from his shoulder. “Most men in your position wouldn’t bother explaining themselves to anyone.”

“I don’t explain myself,” Sebastian said flatly, stepping back from her touch. “I inform. There’s a difference. Finish your coffee. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

Twenty minutes later, Sebastian pulled his sports car into the executive parking garage of Lloyd Enterprises. As he strode through the grand marble lobby, tall, imposing, and radiant with corporate authority, his head assistant Elliot Hayes rushed over, holding a tablet and a thick stack of printed press reports.

“Boss, we have a situation,” Elliot said under his breath, keeping pace with Sebastian’s rapid stride toward the private elevator. “The tabloids picked up photos of you at the hospital last night with Miss Laurent. The PR team managed to suppress the major news outlets, but online forums are already speculating about your marital status.”

“How bad is it?” Sebastian asked without slowing.

“Trending, sir. There’s already a hashtag. People are calling you a modern-day villain.”

Sebastian didn’t even slow down. He snatched the tablet, glanced at the blurry photo of himself carrying Vivienne through the emergency room doors, and let out a cold scoff.

“Let them speculate. Public memory is short,” he commanded coldly, tossing the tablet back to Elliot. “Make sure the story is dead by noon. I have an important meeting with international investors at three, and I won’t have my time wasted by meaningless gossip.”

“Understood, sir. Should I prepare a statement clarifying your relationship with Mrs. Lloyd, just in case a reporter asks directly during the investor meeting?”

“There’s nothing to clarify,” Sebastian said, stepping into the elevator. “Seraphina is my wife. That’s all anyone needs to know. Whatever else people want to whisper about is their own business, not mine.”

He assumed, with absolute certainty, that if Seraphina had seen the headlines, she was currently sitting at home planning another foolish, emotional confrontation. She would probably cry, accuse him of neglect, and make a grand display of burning dinner, just as she had done the last time he missed a family gathering for work. He made a mental note to reprimand her sternly when he got home for not keeping her emotions under control.

Inside his corner office, he sat through three back-to-back calls, barely registering a word of the quarterly projections a junior analyst was reading aloud to him. His mind kept circling back, uninvited, to the memory of Seraphina’s face the last time he had actually looked at it, months ago, standing in the doorway of their bedroom asking if he wanted dinner. He couldn’t remember what he had said to her. He couldn’t remember if he had even answered.

It was nearly one in the afternoon when Sebastian finally drove back toward the suburban estate. The sun was high, casting long, bright shadows across the manicured lawns of the villa.

He pulled up to the driveway, stepped out of his car, and walked through the front doors, fully prepared to face a tearful speech or a cold shoulder.

“Seraphina!” he called out, loosening his collar as he stepped into the foyer.

Silence answered him.

The house was deathly, unnaturally quiet. There was no sound of humming from the kitchen, no smell of fresh soup on the stove, no soft footsteps hurrying down the grand staircase to greet him.

Sebastian’s brows furrowed. He walked into the dining room. The table was completely bare, save for a thin layer of dust and a hardened, forgotten wedge of red velvet cake still sitting on its stand. He stared at it for a long moment before pushing past it and taking the stairs two at a time.

He threw open the master bedroom door. The closet was completely cleared out. Every single piece of her clothing, her shoes, her personal items, and even her modest jewelry boxes were gone, leaving behind vast, empty shelves.

“Seraphina?” he called again, his voice losing some of its usual confidence. “This isn’t funny.”

Panicking for reasons he couldn’t quite comprehend, he rushed down the hall into his private study.

The room was pristine, except for the center of his mahogany desk. Resting side by side were a small, metallic band, her wedding ring, and a signed document. Next to the desk, a pile of black soot and shattered glass lay scattered across the rug where their wedding portrait used to hang.

Sebastian stepped forward, his heart dropping into a cold abyss as his eyes fell upon the paper.

It was the divorce decree. Her signature was bold, crisp, and completely unaltered by tremor: Seraphina Frost.

Before his brain could process the name, Frost, his private phone line rang loudly in the quiet room. He snatched it up, his grip so tight the casing creaked.

“Seraphina! Where the hell are you? What is the meaning of this childish—”

“Is this Mr. Sebastian Lloyd?” a formal, bureaucratic voice interrupted smoothly on the other end. “This is Julian Myers, Chief Registrar from the Central Civil Affairs Bureau. We are calling to formally notify you that your spouse, Seraphina Frost, has submitted a unilateral petition for dissolution of marriage. The thirty-day statutory cooling-off period has officially commenced.”

“There must be some mistake,” Sebastian said, his voice suddenly hoarse. The blood drained from his face, leaving him deathly pale as he stared at the ashes on his floor.

Divorce? Seraphina filed for divorce?

She wouldn’t dare. She had nowhere to go, no money of her own, and no family left to support her. This had to be a trick, a desperate, pathetic bid for his attention.