Leaving The Billionaire Who Loved His Ex

My father was dying on a hospital bed, and I was frantically calling my husband, Ethan.

He didn't answer. Later, he claimed his battery had died while he was on a crucial business trip.

But a photo sent by my best friend revealed the sickening truth. Ethan wasn't working. He was in a London café, looking at Olivia-the ex-girlfriend he swore he hadn't seen in five years-with pure desperation and love.

His phone was sitting right there on the table between them, face up and fully charged.

I swallowed the betrayal and played the perfect, grieving wife when he returned. But then I found the locked drawer in his study.

Inside wasn't just a shrine of photos of her; it was a journal. The ink was barely dry on the latest entry.

"I pray the child has Olivia's eyes. If it looks like her, I can pretend I didn't settle for the safe, boring option. Ava is a good placeholder, but she isn't Her."

He didn't want a family with me. He wanted to use my body to recreate a ghost of the woman he actually loved. He planned to turn our unborn child into a prop for his twisted obsession.

I wiped my tears. The next morning, I handed him a stack of documents to sign, hiding the divorce papers in the middle.

Then, while he was busy texting her under the table, I walked into a clinic to remove the only thing binding us together.

He thinks he is the mastermind. He has no idea he has already lost the game.

Chapter 1

Ava POV

My father was dying on a hospital bed in New York, and my husband was busy resurrecting his ex-girlfriend in London.

That is how the story ends, but at the time, I simply thought it was just a Tuesday.

I sat in the nursery, running my hand over the crib railing. It was painted a soft, creamy white. In fact, everything in my life was soft and white and perfect. I was twenty-six years old, pregnant with my first child, and married to Ethan Sterling.

Ethan was the kind of man who didn't just turn heads; he stopped traffic. He was thirty-eight, a CEO with eyes like glacial Atlantic water and a jawline that could cut glass.

I remembered how we met. I was twenty-four, struggling with a broken heel on a subway grate. He didn't just help me. He swooped in, lifted me up, and deposited me in a town car. He treated me like I was made of fine porcelain.

He told me he needed someone simple. Someone kind. He claimed I was his breath of fresh air after a lifetime of suffocating in high society.

And I believed him.

I looked down at my phone. I had sent him three messages about the ultrasound.

He hadn't replied.

He was in London for a merger. He was always working. I told myself that his work ethic was how he provided this life for us. The penthouse. The nursery. The promise of forever.

Then, my phone buzzed.

It wasn't Ethan. It was my mother.

"Dad collapsed. Massive heart attack. Mount Sinai. Come now."

The world seemed to tilt on its axis. I grabbed my purse, ignoring the heaviness in my lower belly, and ran.

In the taxi, my hands shook so hard I dropped my phone twice. I dialed Ethan.

It rang. And rang. And rang.

Then, voicemail.

"Hi, this is Ethan. Leave a message."

"Ethan," I choked out, tears blurring the city lights that smeared past the window. "It's my dad. He had a heart attack. I'm scared. Please call me. I need you."

When I arrived at the hospital, the smell of antiseptic hit me like a physical blow. My mother was a wreck in the waiting room.

We waited for hours. The doctors were working on him. Every minute felt like a century.

I called Ethan again.

Straight to voicemail.

I called his assistant. No answer.

I sat in the plastic chair, hugging my knees to my chest. I needed his hand on my shoulder. I needed his deep voice telling me it would be okay. He was my husband. He was supposed to be my rock.

My phone vibrated again.

I snatched it up, desperate for his name to appear on the screen.

It was Chloe. My best friend, who was also in London for Fashion Week.

There was no text. Just a photo.

It took my brain a full ten seconds to process what I was seeing.

It was a candid shot taken through the window of a café.

Ethan was there. He wasn't in a meeting. He wasn't working on a merger.

He was sitting across from a woman.

She had dark hair, just like mine used to be before I cut it. She was laughing, her hand resting intimately on his forearm.

It was Olivia. The woman he swore he hadn't spoken to in five years. The woman who broke his heart before I mended it.

Ethan was looking at her.

The expression on his face wasn't the polite mask he wore at galas. It wasn't the gentle, somewhat distant look he gave me.

It was hunger. It was desperation. It was love.

I looked at the timestamp. Taken five minutes ago.

I looked at my sent messages.

"Ethan, please. Dad is dying."

Then I saw the notification from ten minutes ago. A text from Ethan I had missed in the chaos.

"Battery dying. Charger broken. Will call when I can. Love you."

I looked at the photo again. His phone was sitting right there on the café table, face up, screen bright.

It wasn't dead.

He wasn't unreachable. He just didn't want to be reached.