A Divorce He Regrets

Chapter 15:

And she wasn’t the woman I’d once known. Gone was the softness, the eagerness to please, the quiet smiles. She stood before me with all the poise and confidence I’d grown to despise, cold and cutting as a blade. And yet… it was almost invigorating, in a way that tore me up inside.

I was barely two steps in when my mother’s shrill voice tore through the silence. “Alexander! Are we now among the elite, or did we just waste five years chasing the Grahams?”

I wanted to ignore her. I wanted a moment of peace to process everything, to sort through this mess in my head. But my mother never was one for silence.

“Yes, Mother,” I replied tersely. “We signed the deal.”

Her face lit up in satisfaction, as if our entire future now rested in the lap of luxury. To her, this wasn’t just a deal; it was security, validation, the status she had craved for decades. But I didn’t share her delight. For me, this was about something entirely different now.

“I’m calling off the wedding to Eliza,” I said abruptly, meeting her gaze, feeling the weight of her shock as I threw down that verbal gauntlet.

“What?” Her expression tightened, her voice becoming a sharp hiss of frustration. “Don’t be a fool, Alexander! This is the second time you’re calling off a wedding with her family! First for Raina, and now that Raina’s back, you’re just tossing Eliza aside? Think of our connections, think of your future!”

“This isn’t about connections,” I replied flatly, though the irony of that statement wasn’t lost on me. “It’s about Liam. Raina is back, and that means she’s his only chance now.”

She folded her arms, glowering. “You think she’s just going to drop everything to save the son she abandoned?”

A bitter laugh escaped me. If only she knew. Raina had changed, maybe as much as I had, if not more. The old Raina would’ve fallen over herself to apologize, to…

Make things right, to do whatever I asked of her, even though she never truly abandoned Liam, since I took him away from her. But this Raina? She was ready to negotiate, to manipulate, to demand her own pound of flesh.

“Raina’s going to help Liam,” I said coldly, dismissing the part of me that wondered just how far she would make me go. “That’s all that matters right now.”

F𝒾𝓇𝓈𝓉 𝓬𝗵𝒶𝓹𝓉𝓮𝓇𝓈 𝒾𝓃 g𝓪𝗅𝗇ovє𝗅𝓈.🅒𝗈𝗺

The fury on my mother’s face was palpable, but I didn’t stay to watch it simmer. I went up to my room, the echo of her anger chasing after me. But it wasn’t my mother’s voice that haunted me through the silence of the night. It was Raina’s—her words, sharp and cutting, biting down to the core of every reason I’d told myself I was in the right.

What right do you have to ask this of me?

Her voice lingered, heavy with resentment, almost daring me to justify myself. Maybe she was right. But she was also his mother. What kind of mother wouldn’t be willing to save her own son, regardless of her grievances? And yet, her last words to me—those words she’d left hanging in the air like a warning.

You know what I want. Custody.

The thought of her taking Liam away twisted something in my gut. She wanted custody? Fine. I’d fight her. I’d make her do the procedure, save him, and then I’d make sure she never got within ten feet of him again.

The next morning, I didn’t even get the benefit of my anger cooling off. I was still groggy when I heard Eliza’s shrill voice shattering what little peace I’d managed to scrape together. She stormed into my room, her face flushed, eyes blazing, and I knew exactly what this was about before she even said a word.

“Are you really calling off the wedding, Alexander?” she demanded, her voice trembling with disbelief.

.

.noveldrama

.