I Stopped Waiting after the Ninth Divorce Chapter 07

I Stopped Waiting after the Ninth Divorce Chapter 07

Eloise’s POV 

Holden knew everything about me and Emmett. 

He recognized him instantly and stepped forward, putting himself between us. 

“Mr. Grayson, your marriage to Eloise was legally dissolved over a year ago. She’s a free woman. Who she chooses to marry is entirely her own business.” 

“Who the hell do you think you are.” Emmett’s voice tore up from somewhere deep in his throat. He reached out to grab Holden by the collar – Holden 

shoved him back, half a step – but Emmett’s eyes only burned redder. “Divorced or not, she promised she’d remarry me. I’m here to take her home.” 

Holden’s arm tensed. I touched his sleeve lightly and shook my head. 

He held still, glanced at me, jaw tight with something he was pressing down – then stepped back half an inch, clearing the line between me and Emmett. 

“Emmett.” I looked at him, and the steadiness in my own voice surprised me. “Our ninth divorce was a year ago.” 

Something fractured behind his eyes. He shook his head hard. “You’re just trying to get back at me. You 

promised you’d come back – you still love me— “His voice cracked, dropping into a tremor I had never heard from him before. “It was all Genevieve. She was 

the one who kept pushing her way back in, she’s the one who destroyed everything. I’ve dealt with her I had my lawyers freeze every asset in her name and had her sent somewhere far away. She won’t come back. She won’t bother us again. I was wrong, Eloise, I know that — but all those years, you were the one I loved-” 

I laughed. 

Not bitterly. Not with anger. Just a clean, complete kind of exhaustion. 

“Emmett – you think I left because of Genevieve?” 

He went still. 

“I stopped caring about her,” I said, “the same way I stopped caring about you. Long ago.” 

The words landed, and every expression on his face shattered at once. 

Holden didn’t say anything. He simply reached over and took my hand, his fingers threading through mine, his palm warm and steady – a quiet answer to a question no one had spoken aloud. 

I felt Emmett’s gaze drop to our joined hands like something falling. He flinched, just barely. 

“Holden and I are getting married next month.” I looked at Emmett calmly. “I hope you’ll wish us well.” 

Holden turned to me so quickly he couldn’t hide it – his whole face lit up, bright and unguarded, nothing like the composed, carefully measured man he usually was. Something warm and soft moved through me at the sight of it. 

Then Emmett lunged. 

His hand locked around my arm, his voice completely broken. “Eloise, don’t marry someone else, don’t leave me – you promised you’d love me forever, you promised-” didn’t pull away. I just looked down at him. 

“Emmett,” I said quietly. “The night of our first divorce 

the night you left me for Genevieve begged you too.” 

His grip loosened, just slightly.  

“I cut myself on a broken vase once. Just to make 

you stop and look at me for one moment.” I kept my voice even, the way you speak about something that happened to someone else, in another life. “You 

walked out the door without turning around. You went straight to her.” 

Holden’s voice came from behind me, low and un- hurried and absolutely clear. “Mr. Grayson. Put your hands on my fiancée one more time, and tomorrow’s front page will be Grayson Group’s bankruptcy filing.” 

Emmett didn’t hear him. He shoved his sleeve up. A long, thin scar caught the light of the ballroom, raw and unignorable. “You remember this? Fifth time you filed for divorce — you were out of your mind, you were the one who did this – and I never blamed you. 

Not once.” 

I looked at the scar.. 

“You deserved it,” I said. 

He froze. 

“I opened the bedroom door that day,” I said, each word deliberate. “Genevieve was in your lap. On thecouch. You didn’t even look up.” 

Somewhere across the ballroom, someone drew a sharp breath. 

pulled my arm free. Before I turned away, I looked at) him one last time. 

“Emmett – love isn’t an apology after the damage is done. It’s not something you use and then take back. You never understood what love was. You just got used to having someone waiting in place for you.” I heard my own voice, level and clear. “I know what it looks like to actually be loved now. And what you gave me doesn’t come close.” 

I took Holden’s hand and walked away without looking back. 

Emmett’s voice broke behind us, swallowed slowly by the music and the noise of the crowd. 

Outside, the night air rushed in, carrying the particular cool of the European financial district. Holden stopped walking and slipped his jacket off his shoulders, draping it over mine with a gentleness so careful it was almost reverent. Then he tilted his head down and looked at me – really looked at me. 

“Are you cold?” 

I thought about him saying I’ll redesign it if you don’t like it. I thought about I’ve waited since high school. I thought about how, for this entire year, every time he showed up, he stood beside me – never in front of me. Always leaving room. Leaving time. Letting me find my own way back to the light. 

I looked up at him and smiled. 

“I’m fine.” 

This — this was what love was supposed to feel like.