Chapter 114: Win in Suit
It was a civil war only not the kind that spilled blood on battlegrounds, but the kind that tears a man from the inside out. Ethan sat across from his client, watching their eyes avoid his. The handshake was short. Final. Another one is gone.
His office once a place of power and prestige now felt like a ghost town. The very firm his father built from the ground up was crumbling. And he knew exactly who was behind it. Lucy.
She had been his right hand and trust in all the ways that mattered to clients. Until she flipped the table on him, her obsession to have him now had no boundaries and she was ready to burn the world to have him if that was what it took.
Her innocent act stopped working thanks to Mara now she was done pretending, she will fight for what she wants, the kind of obsession that can kill a person, she holds pride in the fact that Mara didn’t fight for Ethan because she didn’t love him as much as she did, she has crossed the line from love to obsession and self-respect to shamelessness.
When Ethan stepped into the courtroom, his suit was sharp, but his nerves were sharper. He needed this win. Not for the headlines. Not even for the pride. But to keep the firm alive.
Opposing him stood Mara, fiery, brilliant, unapologetically confident he had waited for a day like this just for the fun of it but now it wasn’t for fun but survival. Their banter was electric, almost theatrical. Sparks flew, not just from the tension of the case but from the chemistry neither of them dared acknowledge.
Ethan gave it everything. Every piece of law he knew, every skill he had. But it wasn’t enough for the first time in his entire career he lost to his wife. Mara won, Mara felt so good about it as if the win meant something well it did in some sense just to break Ethan to get back at him, she achieved her aim and also set a new record for herself.
As the gavel fell, Ethan’s world tilted a little further toward ruin. But the real storm hadn’t even started.
Just as Mara gathered her files and prepared to leave, the courtroom doors opened with a deliberate slam. Lucy walked in with a smirk that curled like poison ivy.
"Congratulations on the win," she said sweetly to Mara. "Thought you might want to see these."
She handed Mara a sleek envelope. Inside were three photos and a pregnancy test. Mara glanced at the photos Ethan and Lucy, in what looked like a compromising position. And the test. Positive.