After Seven Empty Chairs, I Took My Daughter and Left Chapter 21

After Seven Empty Chairs, I Took My Daughter and Left Chapter 21

The mention of trouble at the Whitaker Foundation was like a bucket of ice water poured over Noah. It extinguished his rage instantly, replacing it with the panic of being seen through. But he immediately transformed that panic into a fiercer possessiveness, his eyes fixed hard on the hand Elias had on Ava’s shoulder.

“Divorce? I wasn’t informed,” Noah said, his voice as hard as winter stone. “A judge’s ruling doesn’t count.”

The unreasonable declaration froze the air.

Sloane, silent until now, finally spoke. Her gaze roamed over Elias’s flawless face, jealousy and resentment flashing in her eyes. How could a loser she had trampled underfoot so quickly attach herself to someone from the Mercer family?

“Ava, you found your next man quickly. Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Her tone carried false familiarity, as if they were still close friends who told each other everything.

“Are we close?” Ava’s voice had no warmth at all. She couldn’t even be bothered to look at Sloane for long. She turned to Noah, looking at him as if he were an unreasonable child.

“The divorce judgment from the Massachusetts court is written in black and white. It has the judge’s signature and seal. You can’t erase that by saying ‘it doesn’t count.’ Use your brain, Noah. Did Harvard Business School not teach you the force of law?”

Her words were a sharp knife, precisely cutting through his false dignity. Hadn’t she endured enough at his side? They were already divorced, and she still had to listen to his nonsense here?

“You two have ruined a perfectly good mood,” Ava said, frowning with disgust. “What bad luck.”

“Ava!” Noah was angered by her blunt attitude. He froze, his face full of disbelief. “How did you become like this? You sound like an uneducated shrew.”

He turned to Sloane, as if seeking agreement. “I didn’t believe Sloane when she told me those things about you. But now it seems you really did bully her when you were at Columbia.”

“I bullied her?” Ava looked as if she had heard the funniest joke of the century, and she actually laughed. “Are you joking? Sloane, did I bully you?”

Sloane’s face instantly turned pale when she was called out. How would she dare confront Ava face-to-face? Those embellished lies couldn’t withstand the light of day. She immediately switched modes, clutching Noah’s arm and putting on the pitiful victim act of a campus drama.

“Noah, let’s go. Ava doesn’t seem very welcoming.”

Before leaving, she didn’t forget to trip Ava up. She turned to Elias and sighed with feigned concern.

“Good luck. She has quite a temper. You’ll need it.”

“Sloane, you’re just too kind,” Noah said, pity rising in him as he saw her wronged expression.

Elias seemed not to hear Sloane at all. He didn’t even spare her a glance. He leaned slightly closer to Ava and asked in a voice only the two of them could hear, “Darling, do you smell an overpowering cheap perfume mixed with something sour, like jealousy?”

Ava immediately understood. She waved a hand before her nose in disgust and played along with perfect tacit understanding.

“Mm. Too strong. The air quality is worse than Los Angeles smog. Let’s go.”

“You…” Sloane trembled with anger, her carefully maintained face flushing red. She had always been the one flaunting her power in front of Ava. When had she ever been humiliated like this to her face?

Noah watched Ava and Elias leave side by side. They stood close together, their posture intimate, like an inseparable couple. His face was so dark it seemed ready to drip water, yet he couldn’t say a word.

He didn’t notice the vicious light that flashed through Sloane’s eyes beside him.

Wasn’t Ava supposed to love him so much? How could she have possibly moved on so quickly?

For the first time, a panic Noah himself didn’t even recognize rose in his heart.