My Commander Ex Divorced Me Then I Became Out of His League Chapter 01

My Commander Ex Divorced Me Then I Became Out of His League Chapter 01

“Sloane Whitmore, we’ve determined that you and Commander Whitmore need to terminate your marriage. Temporarily.”

The last time I heard those words, I couldn’t breathe. I just stood there, shaking, begging them not to do this. Not to take my family apart.

This time, I picked up the pen and smiled. “Fine. I’ll sign.”

Every face in that room shattered.

What they didn’t know was that in my previous life, I’d spent thirty years guarding an empty house for Gavin Whitmore.

I waited until my hair turned gray and my tears ran dry, and I died alone in that ice-cold apartment on base.

This time around—

Someone else can be the commander’s wife.

I’m living for myself now.

***

I woke up in a hospital bed.

Campbell Military Medical Center, to be exact. The sharp sting of antiseptic filled my nostrils. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling made my vision swim.

I froze for three full seconds.

Because I knew this ceiling. This smell. This bed. Intimately.

In my last life, I’d been admitted to this hospital more times than I could count. The first time was a miscarriage. The second, a gastric bleed. The third, a heart episode.

And every single time, the chair beside my bed sat empty.

Gavin Whitmore never came.

Not once.

“Sloane, you’re awake.”

A woman in a gray-blue uniform pushed through the door. Helen Parker. I knew her. Some liaison from the DoD—one of those paper-pushers they send when the brass doesn’t want to get their hands dirty.

In my previous life, she was the one who’d handed me the divorce papers.

That was the winter of 2019. I glanced at my phone on the nightstand.

December 16, 2019.

My fingers twisted into the sheets.

I was really back.

Helen settled into the chair beside my bed, her expression strained. She pulled a document from her briefcase and placed it in front of me.

I looked down.

Divorce Decree.

In the Matter of the Marriage of Whitmore.

Petitioner: Gavin T. Whitmore.

Respondent: Sloane M. Ashford.

Filed: December 16, 2019. Crestwood County Superior Court.

Helen chose her words carefully. “Sloane, this has been vetted all the way up the chain. Commander Whitmore’s being deployed for a long-term, highly classified assignment. From a security standpoint, the recommendation is that—”

She paused. “Divorce. On paper. It’s the cleanest way through this.”