My Boyfriend Called My Mother’S ICU A Bottomless Pit And Her Startup A Gift Chapter 08

My Boyfriend Called My Mother’S ICU A Bottomless Pit And Her Startup A Gift Chapter 08

The judgment came down seven months after my mother died.

The court granted the divorce. Dashiell was ordered to return my early investment with its corresponding gains, and the marital assets were divided again based on their growth during the marriage.

When I received the final order, rain was falling outside.

Hollis asked, “What are you planning to do next?”

I put the judgment away.

“Move my mother first.”

I reburied her at Stillwater Memorial Park, by the lake she had loved when she was alive.

The wind was strong that day.

I stood in front of her headstone and placed a bouquet of white daisies there.

“Mom, I’m divorced now.”

“No one gets to hurt me like that again.”

After I came back from the cemetery, I got sick.

For three days, I burned with fever until time blurred together. One night, I woke in the dark and reached for my water glass, only to knock over the bottle of pills on the nightstand.

Tablets scattered across the floor.

In that moment, I suddenly remembered something Dashiell had once said when I had a fever.

“Don’t act like a cold is terminal.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the pills one by one.

After that, I never let myself fall apart again.

Three months later, I returned to work.

I opened a corporate risk consulting firm.

The beginning was brutal. Some people knew I was Dashiell Veyne’s ex-wife and whispered that I had rebuilt my life with the money from the divorce. Others tested me to my face.

“Ms. Merrick, you know risk control this well. Did Mr. Veyne teach you?”

I set down my coffee.

“No.”

“I learned because he destroyed me.”

A year later, the firm finally stabilized.

Merrick Risk Advisory moved into a new office.

On the day of the ribbon-cutting, many clients sent flower arrangements. My assistant walked in holding one bouquet, her expression a little strange.

“Ms. Merrick, this one doesn’t have a name.”

I glanced at the card.

There was only one line on it.

[I’m sorry.]

I threw the card into the trash.

“Send the flowers back.”

My assistant nodded.

She had just turned to leave when she lowered her voice.

“There’s also someone downstairs. He says he wants to see you.”

I didn’t have to ask who it was.

I walked to the window and looked down.

Dashiell stood outside the building.

He was much thinner than before, his hair cut shorter. The man who had once looked immaculate in every room now wore a wrinkled suit, as if he had been sleeping in it for days.

He looked up, and his eyes went red the moment he saw me. I closed the blinds.

“Tell security.”

“I’m not seeing him.”