I Stopped Waiting after the Ninth Divorce Chapter 06

I Stopped Waiting after the Ninth Divorce Chapter 06

Eloise’s POV 

The moment the plane touched down and the cabin door swung open, a rush of cold air hit me full in the face – and I snapped awake. Like being dragged out of nightmare that had gone on far too long, my body 

still aching from everything it had carried, while the world outside had already become somewhere entirely different. 

I didn’t go home. I went straight to the cemetery. 

Quinn had sent the address ahead of time, with a single line: “Madam has been waiting for you to come back. She left something important for you. Come to the house when you’re done – I’ll be here.” 

My mother’s photo was set into the headstone. 

The moment I crouched down, my eyes burned. 

She looked exactly the way I remembered – sharp features, lips pressed into that faint line, a quiet authority that never needed to announce itself. Like she was always one breath away from telling me off. 

But she would never tell me off again. 

I knelt in front of the stone and ran my fingers over the cold ceramic, feeling the slight raised edge of the photograph. Wind swept in from the hills, carrying the smell of earth and grass. Tears fell onto the stone, dried in the wind, and fell again. 

I had defied her for Emmett. Argued with her, pushed back, and finally threatened to cut ties if she didn’t ac cept him- and the cruelest joke of it all was that I was the one who ended up cut off. Not from her. From the time I should have spent by her side. When she died, Quinn was the only one there. I was busy celebrating what I’d told myself was a new beginning, with a man who found a reason to leave me twice a year. 

“Mom,” I whispered, my voice barely there. “I’m home.” 

By the time I left the cemetery, the sky had gone dark. 

The car turned onto a street I had walked a thousand times as a girl, and in the distance, I could see someone standing at the front door. 

Quinn. 

Her hair was greyer than I remembered, her frame thinner, but she stood just as straight as she always had – exactly the way she used to stand waiting for me to come home from school, twenty years ago. 

The car hadn’t fully stopped before I pushed the door open. 

She came to meet me and pulled me into a hug. Her arms were thinner than before but held on with a fierceness that surprised me, like she was pouring every moment of warmth she hadn’t been able to give back into this one embrace. She didn’t bring up how I’d left. Didn’t mention the silence, the falling out, 

any of it. She just patted my back, her voice wavering slightly. “You’re home. That’s all that matters. You’re home.” 

Inside, Quinn set a steel–grey safe on the table in front of me. 

“Madam’s instructions were clear,” she said. “All family assets were to remain in my keeping until you came home under your own name. At that point, everything passes to you.” She paused, and something unreadable moved through her eyes. “Eloise – what your mother left you is worth more than everything the Grayson family has ever owned.” 

I stared at the safe and said nothing, blinking hard against the tears I refused to let fall. 

One year later. 

“Ms. Winters, the Q2 acquisition report is ready for your review.” My secretary Nora set the documents on the desk with a quiet, practiced deference. 

Beyond the floor–to–ceiling windows, the skyline of the European financial district stretched out in every direction. I set down my pen and opened the cover page. 

Winters Group, CEO: Eloise Winters. 

Over the past year, I had taken control of everything 

my mother left behind, restructured the family’s holdings, and through a series of anonymous shell companies – orchestrated three precise supply chain disruptions against Grayson Group and blocked two of their most critical acquisitions. Emmett had no idea. 

He still didn’t know that the invisible hand that had been dismantling his year piece by piece belonged to the ex–wife he’d once believed was only good enough to bear his children. 

After Nora stepped out, I moved to the window. My reflection looked back at me from the glass – tailored black suit, composed expression. Nothing like the woman who had sat alone in an airport departure hall all night, one year ago. 

Tonight was the annual dinner for European business hosted by Pierce Group. 

Holden Pierce’s event. 

The ballroom blazed with light and the sound of crystal and conversation. I stood with Holden on the terrace, both of us holding champagne, deep into a discussion about next quarter’s Asia–Pacific strategy, when he suddenly stopped. 

“Eloise.” 

The way he said my name was different from anyone else — unhurried, deliberate, like those syllables had been practiced quietly on his tongue more times than he’d ever admit. 

He reached into his inner jacket pocket and produced a small square box covered in blue velvet. 

“I’ve waited a long time for this.” His voice tightened slightly, jaw held straight, composure stretched taut over something that very much wanted to break through. “Since high school. I don’t want to miss my chance again.” 

The box opened. 

A diamond ring rested against deep blue satin. The cut was precise, restrained no excess, every facet the result of careful, deliberate design. Quietly, beautifully exact. 

He took my wrist in his hand, his fingers cool, car- rying a tremor he was almost successfully hiding. “I designed it myself. If you don’t like it, I’ll start over.” 

I smiled and shook my head, and extended my ring finger toward him. 

Something lit up in his eyes. His fingertips touched the band 

A dark shape slammed through the crowd, Emmett came tearing across the ballroom like something unraveling. Eyes shot through with red, collar hanging open, tie wrenched to one side every trace of the polished, composed Emmett Grayson stripped away. His gaze locked onto our hands, on the ring, with an intensity that could have burned straight through the metal. 

“Eloise!” His voice tore across the entire hall. Every head turned at once. “You are my wife. You are not marrying another man!”