Page 15 of Falling for My Ex-Husband's Billionaire Boss
The lift opens its doors again, and I step out. The bellman greets me, my suitcase already with him, and I nod in thanks. My staff will take care of their tips.
Montero is already holding the door of the limo open as I exit through the revolving glass. “Still the airport, sir?”
I nod.
“Understood, sir.”
This is how I like my staff to operate. Efficiently and effectively, with zero time wasted, and in thirty minutes' time, I'm at the airport, the jet is on standby, and immigration is just a formality.
The lounge at the private terminal is mostly empty at this hour. A woman in her thirties is sitting near the window with a coffee. Blonde, expensively dressed, the kind of polished that takes effort to maintain at this hour of the morning. She makes no attempt to hide her interest in me, and I make no attempt to hide my disinterest in her. Eventually, she gets it, and she looks away petulantly.
An official hands me back my U.K. passport, and just like that I'm on a return flight to London.
The moment the door of the cabin closes behind me, the operational silence I've been moving through for the last hour collapses, and what's left is—
This.
The cabin is quiet. The crew know better than to speak unless spoken to. The leather of the seat against my back. The single glass of whisky the steward has placed on the table beside me without being asked. I don't reach for it.
My thoughts are divided. A part of me is strangely outraged at having Nicole walk out on me. The other part is struggling not to overthink about my mom being in an accident. Eventually, I choose the lesser of two evils. With my mother already in surgery, there’s nothing I can do but let sleeping dogs lie.
But Nicole, though...
I remember her pale, tear-streaked face and her trembling body in my arms.
Please help me.
I remember her asking for my help.
And yet...
She still fucking left.
She still chose the douchebag who cheated on her, and I’m just fucking done.
She really is an idiot, and from this moment on, I'm no longer wasting another second on her.
Chapter Seven
THE BUS PULLS INTOthe station, and the brakes hiss as it stops.
I can’t believe at what point did I fall asleep, but it doesn’t feel long enough, and my back hurts in a place I didn’t know my back had. My neck hurts, too. My hips. My legs. I’m not sure if it’s because of my age or lack of exercise. Or maybe it’s simply because I had a really comfortable life in the past twenty years...in exchange of subconsciously playing dumb and blind to everything my husband was doing.
I look down at my dress, which is all crumpled and dirty. I bought it to celebrate the very first time he’s introducing me as his wife to his work buddies. But instead, this ended up being my the-day-my-marriage-crumbled dress.
I look out of the window, and things feel even more surreal as the bus I’m in tosses me this way and that in my seat. It was only a few days ago when Sandy and I sat on business class on a flight to New York. That was my treat, too, by the way. All I wanted that time was to please my husband because back then...everything was still normal.
Safe.
Fake.
But now that the truth is out...life just keeps getting harder and harder.
The driver is calling out the stop, and people around me start gathering their things while I just get to my feet because all I have with me is my shoulder bag. Even so, it’s still a challenge to move with my knees shaking so badly, and I end up being the last one to get off the buss.
The Charlotte station is a place I haven't been in since I was twenty. Maybe earlier. Sandy bought a car for us when we got married because he said his wife wasn't going to take a bus.
I find a cab outside, because I have no other way to get home, and I do the math in my head as the driver pulls into traffic. I have enough cash for the cab. I'll have nothing after that. But it doesn't matter, because home is where my things are. My ID. My checkbook. And the $357 in cash that I left in the bedside drawer.
