Ex Wife's Collapse After Divorce

Chapter three

Ethan stared at her. What caught him off guard was the smile.

Aurora Sinclair didn't smile. Not like this. The woman was carved from ice in front of the public. Cold. Untouchable. The kind of beauty that made men fantasize and women seethe.

Rumor had it the richest man in Crestwood had pursued her publicly. She'd shut him down without blinking, told him flat-out he wasn't her type. The gossip columns had a field day. Some whispered she didn't like men at all.

But right now, standing at the bottom of those steps, Aurora Sinclair was beaming at him like she'd been waiting for Christmas morning.

Sweet. Warm. Almost giddy.

It was so far from her public image that Ethan's brain needed a second to reconcile the two.

"Have we met before?" he asked.

Aurora's smile widened. "Of course. I've seen you more than ten times, Young Master."

Ethan blinked.

Aurora glanced at the suited men flanking the Maybach, then back at him. "This isn't the best place to talk." She tilted her head toward the car. "Get in."

The café occupied the top floor of a building Ethan had never set foot in — the kind of place that didn't have prices on the menu because if you had to ask, you didn't belong. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the river, and they were the only customers on the entire floor.

Aurora sat across from him, legs crossed, stirring a cup of coffee she hadn't touched. The ice-queen mask was completely gone. In its place was something almost playful — like a kid who'd finally gotten to show off a secret.

"You said you've seen me," Ethan said. "When?"

Aurora set down the spoon. "Too many times to count. But Mrs. Carter — your wife — was always there."

"The one I remember most clearly," Aurora continued, her voice softening, "was that charity banquet last summer. The one Stellaris hosted."

Ethan's jaw tightened.

"Your wife drank too much. Some real estate CEO cornered her in the lounge area — hands where they shouldn't have been." Aurora's eyes locked onto his. "You walked straight through a room full of people, knocked him flat on his back, and carried her out."

The memory hit like a sucker punch.

Last summer. July. Vivian had wanted to expand her network, so she'd gone to the banquet alone. Her secretary called Ethan three hours later, voice shaking.

He'd had a hundred-and-two-degree fever that night.

The fever was his own fault. Vivian had mentioned she was craving barbecue from that riverside night market stall — the one forty minutes away. He'd gone without a second thought. Got caught in a downpour on the way back. By morning, he could barely stand.

But when that call came, he dragged himself out of bed, drove across the city, and found Vivian passed out on a leather couch with some fifty-year-old property developer leaning over her, fingers brushing her thigh.

Ethan had broken the man's nose.

And then the man's bodyguards had broken Ethan's face.

He remembered the taste of blood in his mouth. The laughter from the crowd. The whispers — "Isn't that the Lockwood family's live-in son-in-law? What a joke."

He'd carried Vivian out anyway. Blood running down his temple, ribs screaming, legs barely holding.

When Vivian sobered up the next day and heard what happened, she didn't thank him. She didn't ask if he was okay.

She screamed at him for embarrassing her in front of her business contacts.

"That banquet," Ethan said quietly. "That was yours."

"Stellaris hosted it, yes." Aurora nodded. "I didn't know who you were at the time. But after that night, I had someone look into you." 

She paused. "I thought your wife was the luckiest woman in the world."

The words landed somewhere deep in Ethan's chest.

He laughed. Short. Bitter. The kind of laugh that tasted like ash.

Three years. Three years of cooking her meals, ironing her clothes, running across the city in the rain for barbecue, taking beatings from strangers to keep her safe. Three years of swallowing every insult her family threw at him, every sneer from her colleagues, every pitying look from the doorman.

And last night at the celebration party, in front of everyone, she'd called him dead weight.

Then came home at dawn with another man's lipstick on her neck.

Ethan's fist clenched on the table. The knuckles went white.

"She doesn't deserve it," he said. His voice was low. Flat. Final.

Aurora's eyes flickered — a flash of surprise. But it passed quickly. 

She was sharp. She didn't need him to spell it out. The man who'd just been greeting her outside his wife's apartment building at six in the morning, alone, with a bruised fist and fury in his eyes — the picture wasn't hard to read.

"Then..." Aurora set her coffee cup down carefully. "Can I ask you something that might be a little sensitive?"

Ethan looked at her.  

"Lockwood Industries has been a partner of Stellaris for the past few years," Aurora said. "But honestly? They were never the right fit. The partnership only existed because of orders from above." She paused. "From your mother."

Ethan said nothing.  

"I even transferred one of my best people — Arthur Voss, our lead R&D engineer — to Lockwood. His real salary is five and a half million a year. Lockwood pays him five hundred thousand. Stellaris covers the rest." 

Aurora's fingers tightened slightly around her cup. "If you and Vivian are... no longer together, can I pull the support? Bring Arthur back?"

She watched him carefully, gauging his reaction.

Ethan leaned back in his chair.

His first instinct was to say no — not out of loyalty to Vivian, but because targeting a woman felt beneath him.

But then again — did Vivian earn any of it? The contracts? The resources? Arthur Voss?

No. She got all of it because of him. Because his mother had quietly built a safety net around the woman he loved.

And Vivian had spent five years standing on that net, looking down at him, telling him he was worthless.

"Your call," Ethan said. "You're the CEO. Do what makes sense for Stellaris."

Aurora exhaled. The tension left her shoulders, and a genuine smile broke across her face, 

"Thank you, young master!" She blinked her eyes and said, "I have a feeling that working under you will be very pleasant for me."

Something about that smile loosened a knot in Ethan's chest. 

How long had he not seen such a smile? It seemed that this smile had vanished from Vivian's face since Damian returned a month ago, replaced by coldness and indifference.

Now even if Vivian were to smile like that, he wouldn't want her anymore. There is someone who smiles even more charmingly than her.

Ethan's phone buzzed on the table.

He glanced at the screen. Vivian's name. 

Why is she calling now? He picked up.

"Ethan Carter!" Vivian's voice exploded through the speaker. "You need to come back right now and apologize to Damian! Do you hear me? You punched him — in our home!"