Stripping For My Devil Ex Husband

Valerie marched both men three blocks down the avenue to L’Ambroisie, an impossibly sleek, Michelin starred dining room bathed in pale linen and soft jazz.

​She had flashed her card, and demanded the executive chef prepare a custom anti-inflammatory tasting for Damian, while ordering Julian a massive, dry-aged bone-in ribeye charred over white oak.

​When the silver cloches were lifted, the culinary at their booth was absurd.

​In front of Damian sat a masterpiece of high-end dietary restraint. It was a poached milk-fed chicken tenderloin glazed in a transparent, golden reduction of roasted ginger and lemongrass, resting over a delicate mosaic of baby heirloom carrots that gleamed like polished amber.

Beside it was a shallow porcelain bowl of clarified bone consommé... crystal-clear, steaming faintly, and infused with shaved turmeric that curled like saffron ribbons in the broth.

​It looked pristine, ridiculously expensive, and totally joyless.

​Damian picked up his heavy silver spoon, inspecting the golden broth with cold, clinical interest.

​Across from him, Julian looked utterly miserable. His sizzling steak sat largely untouched as Valerie leaned halfway across the table, ruthlessly dissecting his love life like an aggressive therapist.

​"Did you or did you not puff your chest out like a caveman when you barged in?" Valerie demanded, brandishing a breadstick at him. "Clara is a self-made woman who clawed her way out of debt, Julian. The minute you started flashing your Montgomery temper over a harmless hug, she put you right in the ’entitled rich boy’ box."

​Julian let out a rough, exhausted breath, rubbing his temples until his knuckles went pale. The raw, lingering sting of Clara’s words stripped away the last remnants of his aristocratic poise.

​"You think I don’t know that?"

Julian murmured, staring blankly down into his water goblet, his voice hollowed out with genuine vulnerability.

"She looks at me, and all she sees is the family name. The parties, the trust funds, the parade of women my father used to parade around the country club. She thinks this is a game to me. She thinks I’m slumming it in a run-down loft because I’m bored, and that the second things get inconvenient, I’ll run back to my inheritance."

​He looked up at Valerie, his hazel eyes clouded with frustration.

"I walked away from everything, Val. I’m building something real, on my own terms. But every time I try to tell her that... every time I try to get close... she puts up a wall. I don’t know how to make her see that I actually care about her."

​Damian didn’t offer a word of comfort. In fact, he seemed entirely tuned out.

​With calm focus, Damian took a slow spoonful of the consommé. The delicate ginger warmth rolled over his palate, instantly soothing the dull, thrumming pull in his stitched flank.

He sampled a razor-thin cut of the poached chicken; it melted effortlessly against the mild broth. It had no salt, no butter, and no pepper, but compared to Julian’s emotional agony and Valerie’s nonstop lecturing, the pale meal was easily the most interesting and peaceful thing that had happened to him all morning.

​Julian finally caught Damian’s tranquil expression and snapped. "Are you seriously ignoring me right now? I’m baring my soul here, and you’re treating your hospital soup like a spiritual awakening."

​Damian dabbed his mouth with a dark linen napkin, looking entirely unbothered.

​"The ginger balances the lack of sodium remarkably well," Damian murmured, his obsidian eyes drifting up to fix Julian with an icy, calculating stare. "You, however, are approaching this like an amateur."

​Julian bristled. "Excuse me?"

​"You’re begging for her validation."

Damian said, his voice dropping into that dark, uncompromising timber that ran boardrooms and crushed rivals.

"You’re waiting for her to give you permission to matter to her. That’s why she keeps you at arm’s length. A woman with Clara’s spine doesn’t respect a man who stands on the perimeter asking for a chance. If you want her, you stop asking to be understood. You dismantle the distance yourself. You handle whatever threatens her, you step into her blind spots, and you make yourself completely indispensable. You don’t leave her room to imagine a life where you aren’t standing right beside her."

​Valerie gasped in horror, smacking the table with her palm. "Stop giving him sociopathic advice! That’s not romance, that’s an emotional hostage situation! That only worked on Ana because she’s just an innocent lamb unlike you!"

​"It worked," Damian replied with absolute, deadpan composure, raising his water glass. "And she hasn’t walked away."

​Before Valerie could launch into a fresh speech on healthy relationship boundaries, her phone vibrated sharply against the white linen. She glanced down at an internal alert, and a slow, wicked grin spread across her face.

​"Oh, this is too good," Valerie whispered, her eyes dancing between the two men. "Clara and Anastasia just walked into the private garden terrace... right around that decorative frosted wall. They’re sitting outside with white wine and bread rolls right now."

​Julian froze, his fork clattering against the rim of his plate. His gaze snapped toward the arched glass doors leading to the courtyard.

​Damian’s quiet appreciation of his broth vanished instantly. The calculated ease fell away, replaced by an immediate, predatory sharpness. His broad shoulders squared, his obsidian eyes narrowing. "Who is with them?"

​"Nobody. Just the two of them," Valerie said, already sliding out of the booth and slinging her purse over her shoulder. "Julian, you want to prove you’re not just a ghost in her life? Damian, you want to make yourself impossible to avoid? Pack it up, gentlemen. We’re moving to the terrace."

​"Valerie, sit down," Damian commanded in a low, dangerous rasp. "I am not stalking my ex-wife across the dining room."

​"Right, because you’d rather sit here pretending boiled root vegetables have personality while Marcus probably sends her a funny follow-up email about their little breakthrough," Valerie provoked with a sugary smile.

​Damian set his spoon down with a soft, final click against the porcelain. He stood up, towering over the table, smoothing his dark navy cuffs with lethal composure.

​"Julian," Damian muttered, his tone flat and unyielding. "Get your coat."

​Valerie led the charge straight through the French doors and out onto the quiet, sun-drenched terrace. Clara and Ana were seated at a table beneath a canopy of ivy, mid-conversation, glasses of chilled Sauvignon Blanc in hand.

​Ana was laughing at something Clara said, lifting her glass, when the shadow fell over their table.

​Her hazel eyes flicked up, and her laugh died in her throat.

​Right in front of them stood Valerie, looking like a Cheshire cat, flanked by Julian... who was staring down at Clara with raw, conflicted intensity... and Damian, who was towering over the terrace like an approaching storm front, his dark gaze locked entirely on Anastasia.

​Clara slowly set her wine glass down onto the iron table with a dull clink, her emerald eyes narrowing to razor-thin slits as she glared up at Julian.

​"Are you following me, Mr. Montgomery?" Clara asked, her voice dangerously cool.

​Before Julian could scramble for an excuse, Valerie happily dragged an extra chair over, squeezing herself right between Clara and Ana with a bright, entirely shameless beam.

​"What an incredible coincidence!" Valerie announced cheerfully. "Is this seat taken?"

With Valerie firmly wedged between the two women and signaling the waiter for dessert menus, space at the bistro table vanished.

​Damian didn’t bother asking for permission. He stepped forward and slid into the curved bench beside Anastasia, his broad frame boxing her neatly against the terrace’s stone wall.

Beneath the draping white linen, his large, warm hand found her thigh, fingers settling heavy and deliberate just above her knee. His thumb traced a slow, possessive circle against her skin, an unmistakable reminder of who had followed her down from the tower.

​Ana didn’t flinch. Instead, a thin smile touched her lips. Without looking at him, she flagged down the hovering server.

​"My husband is recovering from internal strain," Ana told the waiter with angelic sweetness. "Bring him the house gentian-root digestif. The double-fermented, unsweetened one. It’s exceptional for suture inflammation."

​Damian’s jaw tightened. He cast a sideways glance at his ex-wife, his obsidian eyes promising retribution the moment they were behind closed doors.

​Across the table, Valerie leaned her elbows on the linen, her eyes zeroing in on Clara like an interrogator with a fresh suspect.

"So, Clara. Be entirely honest. What exactly does Julian have to do to get out of your doghouse? Does he need to publicly apologize, or should I just have him do community service?"

​Julian groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose in sheer mortification. "Valerie, please stop."

​"I’m serious!" Valerie insisted cheerfully. "He was nearly sobbing into his steak inside because you told him he was an entitled rich boy with petty jealousy."

​Clara’s face burned scarlet. She looked from Valerie’s gleeful smile to Julian’s utterly defeated slouch, then to Damian casually suffocating Ana’s space across the table.

​"I need some air," Clara said tightly.