I Stopped Waiting after the Ninth Divorce Chapter 08

I Stopped Waiting after the Ninth Divorce Chapter 08

Eloise’s POV 

The wedding was held on an island. 

Holden had bought it three months earlier. The ceremony hall was built from walls of white silk, and when the sea breeze rolled through, the fabric drifted without direction, like something quietly breathing. 

I sat in front of the mirror while Quinn arranged my veil. My fingers turned the lace hem of my dress over and over without thinking. 

“Quinn,” I said. “Is he still outside?” 

Her hands paused. She didn’t deny it. She simply set down the comb. “He came last night. Said he wouldn’t leave until he saw you.” 

I looked at my own reflection. No pity. No hesitation. Only the stillness that comes after a long illness finally breaks. 

Then the door opened. Nora stepped in, tablet in. 

hand. 

“Ms. Winters.” Her voice was low. “Grayson Group 

has just been suspended from trading. Mr. Pierce completed the final share acquisition an hour ago. Emmett Grayson is officially left with nothing.” 

I said nothing. 

Nora turned the screen and pointed to a line of smaller text. “Mr. Pierce also arranged a separate trust. Harper’s personal assets and retirement. 

Accounts have been ring–fenced entirely – fully protected from the Group’s collapse.” She paused, and the corner of her mouth curved just slightly. “He said Harper is an innocent party.” 

I closed my eyes for a moment. 

He was always like this – thinking ahead to the places 

I hadn’t reached yet, and quietly taking care of them. 

Nora added one last thing, offhand but precise: “Mr. Pierce also said anyone who has ever hurt will not walk away from it.” you Ten minutes before the ceremony, the security perimeter broke. 

I was standing at the entrance to the hall when I heard the commotion. I turned, and there was Emmett, pushing through the crowd. His suit was wrinkled beyond repair, eyes ringed with dark shadows, jaw unshaven. 

Only I stared for just a second. Not out of softness because the man in front of me looked so little like. 

the sharp, commanding Emmett Grayson I had once known. 

“Eloise.” His voice was barely a voice at all. “I’m bankrupt.” He stopped, like that sentence had used up everything he had left. “I’ve been diagnosed with depression. The doctors say it’s serious. If you could find it in yourself to take pity on me, just once-” 

Holden’s hand found mine. 

I glanced down. His fingers were trembling slightly, his knuckles gone pale. I looked up at his profile – 

red at the edges, jaw set tight, every part of him pulled taut and barely holding. 

He was scared. 

Scared I might soften. 

I tightened my hand around his, one quiet squeeze, then looked toward the security team and gave a small 

nod. “Please escort him out.” 

Emmett started to say something else. They already had him by the arms. His voice broke apart and mixed with the sound of the waves, growing thinner, further, until the island swallowed it whole. 

I took Holden’s hand and walked into the hall. 

His hand had stopped trembling. Our fingers laced together, tight and certain. The officiant’s voice drifted toward me from somewhere ahead, and all I can remember now is saying I do, and then he bent down and kissed me for a very long time. 

I heard things afterward, in pieces, as time passed. 

Emmett was hospitalized. He died in his room six months later – alone, without a sound. Before the end, he signed a body donation form. Someone photographed it and posted it online. There weren’t many comments. Only a few words: He had it coming. At least it meant something. Genevieve’s ending was messier. She found her way 

to another married man. His wife, unlike me, showed up at her door. There was a scene in the street. No one saw Genevieve after that. 

I heard about it on an ordinary afternoon, while feeding the kids lunch. I made a small sound and didn’t think about it again. 

By then, we were three years into our marriage. 

The twins were two Lily. 

one named Rosie, one named 

That evening, I came out of the study and heard laughter spilling down the hallway, the kind that can’t be contained. I pushed open the living room door and stopped. 

Holden knelt on the carpet, shirt open at the collar, tie gone. Rosie clung to his back, fists locked in his collar, shrieking with laughter as he made solemn clip–clop sounds and lurched forward like a horse. 

Lily crouched nearby, wielding a bookmark like a flag. 

“Go!” she commanded. 

Holden broke into an exaggerated gallop with a theatrical whinny. Rosie nearly slid off–his hand shot up instinctively, catching her waist without looking. 

He set Rosie down. Lily immediately flopped beside him, eyes shining. “Daddy, me next!” 

Holden tapped her nose, voice dropping to a stage whisper. “First, the magic password.” 

Lily thought for three seconds, then cupped her hands around his ear and whispered. 

Holden shuddered dramatically, as if struck by a spell, and lowered himself back down. “The magic works. Your horse is ready, my lady.” 

Lily stomped both feet with delight, clambered up, grabbed his shirt, and announced at full volume: “Go!” 

I stood in the doorway with a cup of tea going cold in my hands. 

Sometimes a life takes the long way around. You wander through stretches that were never meant for you, fall in the same places over and over, and start to believe that’s all there is. 

But then one day you stop. You catch your breath. And you find – the happiness you always deserved was you all along. 

END