“You Don’t Fit My World Anymore” — He Divorced His Billionaire Wife on a $41 Cab Fare. She Owned…
Chapter 10
They escaped through a service tunnel that opened into the woods.
By dawn, police had secured the estate.
Evan survived.
Barely.
Mia refused to leave the hospital.
Daniel sat beside her.
Neither had slept.
Finally, Mia spoke.
“I meant what I said.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I know.”
“No.”
She turned toward him.
“I need you to understand.”
He reached for her hand.
“I do.”
She shook her head.
“Do you?”
Daniel looked down.
“I divorced you over a forty-one-dollar cab ride.”
“You divorced me because you believed I made you feel small.”
“I was wrong.”
“You were insecure.”
“I was.”
“I deserved better.”
“I know.”
Mia wiped her eyes.
“But I wasn’t perfect either.”
Daniel looked surprised.
“I should have told you more.”
“You had reasons.”
“I still hurt you.”
He nodded.
They sat in silence.
Then Mia asked,
“Why did you come back?”
Daniel smiled sadly.
“Because I realized I loved you after I lost the version of you I thought I knew.”
She looked away.
“That’s complicated.”
“It is.”
A doctor entered.
Evan was awake.
They were allowed to speak with him briefly.
Evan looked at Mia.
“Your father left another message.”
“Where?”
“With his original attorney.”
Mia frowned.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t find him.”
The attorney was located that afternoon.
An elderly man named Samuel Grant met them in a private office.
He placed an old tape recorder on the desk.
“Richard instructed me to play this only if his daughter and her husband came together.”
Mia looked at Daniel.
Samuel pressed play.
Richard’s voice returned.
“There will be people who tell you the inheritance is the important part.”
A pause.
“It isn’t.”
Mia listened.
“The fortune was always a shield.”
Another pause.
“The real inheritance is the truth.”
Richard explained that Mia’s biological father had been a scientist named Thomas Hawthorne.
Thomas had created revolutionary battery technology.
Richard had purchased his patents after Thomas’s death, but he regretted the methods used to obtain them.
Mia had been placed under Richard’s care after Thomas’s death because someone was hunting for the technology.
Richard had spent years trying to uncover who.
Then he discovered the truth.
One of his own investors had arranged Thomas’s death.
That investor was still alive.
Samuel stopped the recording.
Mia whispered,
“Who?”
Samuel slid one final photograph across the desk.
Daniel looked.
The man standing beside Richard in the photograph was someone they both knew.
The current chairman of Mercer Holdings.
Victor Hale.
Mia’s most trusted board member.
The man who had signed off on every major decision since Richard died.
Daniel stared at the photograph.
“He’s been running the company.”
Samuel nodded.
“He’s been waiting for control.”
Mia stood.
“Then let’s take it back.”
