He Brought His Mistress, I Brought My Lawyers Chapter 13

He Brought His Mistress, I Brought My Lawyers Chapter 13

At the same time, a private jet landed smoothly on a runway in Saint Barthélemy.

Ethan followed Sloane out of the cabin. The warm, humid sea wind did nothing to dispel the fine chill rising from deep within him. He undid the top button of his shirt, but the cold remained.

Instinctively, he unlocked his phone. The screen showed more than a dozen missed calls from his parents.

Irritation flashed through him.

What had Avery done now?

Dragging the elders into it was her favorite tactic. He could already hear his father’s stern questions and his mother’s sighs.

His finger slid across the screen and opened his messages.

Avery’s chat sat there, quiet. No new messages. No furious accusations. Nothing.

Clean, as if it had never existed.

He scrolled up. Their last conversation was from before that damned charity gala.

His fingers, wrapped around the phone, had gone cold. His heart began to beat with a strange anxiety. A panic he had never felt before crept around him like vines. He started composing a message. He wanted to ask about her forehead. He wanted to tell her he would be back soon and was bringing her a new necklace from her favorite jewelry designer as compensation.

But his finger hovered over the send button, unable to press down.

“Ethan, you shouldn’t be thinking about troublesome things on vacation.”

A soft voice interrupted his thoughts. Sloane had appeared beside him. With a hint of playful reproach, she took the phone from his hand.

She glanced at the screen, then pressed the power button, her expression unchanged. The screen went dark.

“For the next few days, so you can truly relax, I’ll keep your phone for you,” she said, winking as if it were just a joke.

Her action forcibly gathered his wandering thoughts. He had grown used to Sloane’s dependent willfulness. He took his suitcase from her, his tone obedient in a way he didn’t even notice.

“Whatever you say.”

For the next few days, the sun, beaches, and blue sea of Saint Barthélemy became the gorgeous backdrop for their carefully planned escape.

Ethan walked with Sloane on Eden Rock Beach, dined in fine restaurants, and enjoyed the sea breeze on a yacht. Yet amid the almost unreal romance, he was constantly distracted.

He felt as if something vital had been left behind, as if something were slipping irreversibly out of his control.

But what?

He kept comforting himself.

Avery was just injured and throwing a tantrum. When he returned with gifts and an apology, she would forgive him, just as she always had. She loved him. She couldn’t leave him. Their wedding was the biggest event on the East Coast. She would never give that up.

Yet that inexplicable panic clung to him like a disease, forcing him to cut the weeklong trip to three careless days.

It wasn’t until the night before they returned, at the hotel’s terrace restaurant, that Sloane finally gave him back the phone that had been powered off for three days.