After Divorce, My Ex-Wife Became a Billionaire novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: One Coat

Darrell's mother seizes Rhiannon's coat in front of the guests as the CFO's phone fills with bank alerts. She walks out into the cold, where a black car is waiting.

For three seconds the roof was so quiet I could hear the heaters ticking.

Then Darrell laughed.

"She's joking." He spread his hands to the crowd. "My wife teaches finger painting. Everyone, please, enjoy the bar."

Nobody moved.

In the front row, the chief financial officer was reading his phone with his lips pressed white.

"Darrell," the CFO said. "The Larkspur account just flagged. The wire is gone. The line is frozen."

"That's a glitch."

"It's four hundred million dollars."

"It's a glitch."

I handed the microphone to a waiter, who took it.

Then I walked toward the elevators.

The crowd parted again, slower this time.

A woman I had once sat beside at a charity lunch watched me pass with her mouth open.

Behind me, Jocelyn said in her cooing voice, "Baby, who is she?"

Nobody answered her.

I was nearly at the doors when a hand closed on the sleeve of my coat.

"You are not wearing that."

Vivian Gaines had crossed the roof in her pearls faster than I had ever seen her move.

She pulled at the collar.

"I bought that coat," she said, loud enough for the front tables.

"Christmas, three years ago. It was a charity gift to a girl who owned one wool sweater."

I looked at the hand on my sleeve.

Then I looked at her.

Six years of Sunday lunches.

Six years of "the teacher" said across the table, in front of me, as though I were the help.

"You're right," I said. "I should have returned it."

I took the coat off.

I folded it once over my arm, and laid it in her hands.

The wind off the lake came straight through my turtleneck.

I did not shiver.

"Keep it, Vivian," I said. "It's the last thing of mine you'll ever hold."

A man somewhere laughed, and had the sense to turn it into a cough.

Darrell came after me then.

He caught up at the elevator and took my wrist, hard.

"What did you do?" he said low, with his smile still fixed for the cameras. "Whatever this is, undo it. Right now. Tonight."

"You've asked for a meeting with Larkspur for five years," I said. "Are you asking me for one?"

"Rhiannon."

"Say it where they can hear you."

His grip tightened.

His eyes flicked to the phones, a whole ring of them, held up.

He let go.

The elevator opened behind me with a soft chime.

"The papers are signed," I said. "You're free, Darrell. Isn't that what you wanted?"

I stepped in and the doors closed on his face.

It took forty floors to stop my hands shaking.

I had planned this for fourteen months and rehearsed every word.

Still I stood in a mirrored box with my fingers pressed to my mouth, not sure whether I would laugh or be sick.

At the lobby, the night doorman held the glass door open and looked at the floor.

He had worked here since the day the tower opened.

He had been laid off by email on Tuesday.

I had not known that until now.

I stepped out into the cold.

A black sedan idled at the curb with its hazards blinking.

A man stood at the rear door in rolled shirt sleeves, in thirty-eight degrees.

Winslow Strathmore looked at my bare arms, took off his jacket without a word, and put it around my shoulders.

It was still warm.

"You did it," he said.

"I did it."

"How do you feel?"

"Like I want to throw up on that very expensive curb."

"Do it," said a voice from inside the car. "Make it count."

Nadine leaned out of the passenger side, her silver hoops swinging, a phone in each hand and a grin that showed all her teeth.

"Did you see his face?" She was almost singing.

"Did you see the CFO's face? I've got the whole roof on a stream, Rhi.

You are trending in Chicago, right behind a dog in a Bears jersey."

"Please don't tell me that."

"Get in, billionaire."

I got in.

Winslow closed the door and walked around to the driver's seat, and the car slid away from the glittering tower without a sound.

Nadine climbed into the back beside me and took my hand in both of hers.

"I need to say something and I need you not to cry," she said.

"You were terrifying. I'm going to be telling this to my grandchildren."

"You don't have grandchildren."

"I will have grandchildren, and I'll lie about their ages."

I laughed, and then I was crying anyway, and Nadine held on without saying a word.

Winslow drove.

Once, at a red light on Michigan Avenue, his eyes found mine in the mirror, and stayed.

"The house is open," he said. "I turned the heat on at six."

"At six."

"You told me eight o'clock this morning that tonight was the night. I believed you."

His voice was gravel, level and quiet.

Then he picked up his phone, glanced at the screen, and set it face-up on the console.

"Larkspur's first call is already placed," he said. "The line goes to zero at midnight. Every bank in town will have a message by morning."

Behind us, forty floors of glass went dark in the mirror, one window at a time.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend