Off Script: The Ex-Husband's Revenge

[Watcher: LOL waiting for this dirtbag to refuse to sign, then bawl his eyes out and beg her on his knees. Destroy him.] I signed the divorce papers the second they hit the desk.

The whole audience wanted me on my knees.

I woke up inside a book I'd read, as the male lead of a trashy heartbreak novel, on the day my marriage ended at a county desk. [Watcher: BUCKLE UP.

Grovel arc incoming.] [Watcher: He won't sign. He's about to figure out that Corrie got set up by the one that got away.] I read all of it. Then I smiled and signed my name.

I'm not the real male lead. Why would I run his grovel arc for him? Chapter 1 Three years of marriage, and I ended it in the time it takes to write a name.

I woke up inside a book I'd read, on the exact day the divorce got signed. The pen was almost on the paper when a few lines drifted past my eyes. [Watcher: BUCKLE UP.

Grovel arc incoming.] [Watcher: LOL waiting for this dirtbag to refuse to sign, then bawl his eyes out and beg her on his knees. Destroy him.] [Watcher: He won't sign.

He's about to figure out that Corrie got set up by the one that got away.] I read all of it. Then I smiled and signed my name. I'm not the real male lead.

Why would I run his grovel arc for him? The book was called The Billionaire's Caged Bride. Old, cheap, soaked in misery.

The male lead in it was cold, blind, obsessive, a billionaireCEO type who wrecked his wife and then spent the back half of the book crawling after her. His name was Roman Ashford.

Now it was mine. So there I was, in the county clerk's office, finishing a marriage I'd never actually had. The woman beside me was beautiful. Her face had no color in it at all.

Cora Bennett. My wife on paper. Not for much longer. Three years of marriage, and in the book I'd done nothing decent with a single day of it. Froze her out. Humiliated her.

Believed the worst about her. Cost her the baby. Total garbage human. The sick part was that he loved her.

He just listened to a twofaced woman whispering in one ear and a smug guy circling his wife in the other, and he took every wrong turn on the map. Then came the second half.

He wakes up. The chasing starts. Broken leg. Bankruptcy. Almost dead in a hospital bed. And she still doesn't take him back. He gets skinned alive for the rest of the book.

One word for it. Brutal. I was chewing on all that when the colored letters floated up again, half seethrough, right across my line of sight. [Watcher: BUCKLE UP.

Grovel arc incoming.] [Watcher: WAKE UP, you snake Ashford! Look at everything Corrie gave up for you!

You sign that and you're finished!] [Watcher: I'll bet you five bucks he rips the papers up and screams "I don't agree." Classic.] Floating comments. So that's what they were.

An audience from another world. Chapter 2 They were watching a show. Waiting for me to hurt. Waiting for me to regret it.

Waiting for me to walk down that same deadend road after her. I looked at the words and my mouth pulled sideways. Grovel arc? Not my problem. I wasn't Roman Ashford.

Why would I serve that idiot's sentence for him? The leg? The bankruptcy? The begging? Come on. Freedom was right there. Something in me wanted out, and it wanted out hard.

Out of all of it. Now. The clerk slid the papers across and tapped the signature line. Cora didn't look at me.

She kept her head down, eyes on the desk, and there was nothing behind them. She signed her copy fast. Pressed hard enough to score the page. Like she was running.

The pen sat by my hand. I picked it up. The comments kept coming, thick enough to fog the room. [Watcher: His face is ICE. He's not actually signing. No way.] [Watcher: Fake!

It's all fake! He's about to blow up!] [Watcher: The money scene is coming! Screen record, screen record!] I didn't give a single one of them a second look.

The nib touched the paper. Smooth. I wrote Roman Ashford. Fast. Steady. No pause anywhere in it. My wrist never shook.

Then I set the pen down and pushed the whole thing back across the desk. "Done." My voice came out light. The lobby was quiet. Just the HVAC humming somewhere overhead.

The clerk stalled out. He checked the paper. Then me. Then Cora. He'd probably never watched a divorce go through that clean.

Not from the man everyone said was obsessed with his wife. Cora finished signing too. She raised her head, and those empty eyes finally landed on me. The numbness in them cracked.

Something came through it. Shock. And under that, something close to disbelief. The comments detonated. [Watcher: !!!!!!!!!!] [Watcher: WHAT?? He signed??

HE ACTUALLY SIGNED??] [Watcher: Wrong script! Where's the ripping? Where's the big awakening?!] [Watcher: WHERE IS MY GROVEL ARC. Is this what I asked for?

REFUND.] The paperwork went through fast. The clerk stamped both copies and passed the decrees back across the desk. That was it. Nobody's husband. Nobody's problem.

I stood and stretched. Cora was still sitting there, head bent over the paper in her hands like it was a hot iron someone had handed her. I didn't look at her. I turned and walked.

Long steps. Quick ones. I wanted out of that building. The comments rolled so fast they blurred. [Watcher: He's leaving?? He's actually leaving??

He didn't even turn his head!] [Watcher: My chase scene. My grovel arc. The writers can eat dirt.] [Watcher: ASHFORD. GET BACK HERE. ON YOUR KNEES.] [Watcher: Hold on.

Isn't he walking out of there way too easy?] The doors opened onto hard sunlight and traffic noise, and the air tasted better out there. The driver brought the car up to the curb.

Black town car. I pulled the door open and dropped onto the leather. Cool. Comfortable. Behind me, a whole crowd was still screaming for a man who was never coming back.

Chapter 3 "Back to the office?" The driver watched me in the mirror. "Yeah." I leaned into the seat and shut my eyes. My head still throbbed on a slow beat.

But the weight was gone off my chest, and I couldn't remember ever feeling that light. The car pulled into traffic. The clerk's office slid away behind us. My phone buzzed.

I dug it out. A name was flashing on the screen. Sienna Kessler. The one that got away.

The twofaced woman who set Cora up in the book, the reason the old Roman Ashford believed his wife had lost another man's baby.

She was also one of the matches that lit the whole grovel arc. The comments got loud. [Watcher: HERE WE GO. The other woman is calling!] [Watcher: She's calling to comfort him.

Ashford's gonna go cry on her shoulder for sure.] [Watcher: Lock those two trash people together forever and LEAVE CORRIE ALONE.] Looking at that name made my stomach turn.

I killed the call. Then I dragged the number into the block list, and half the world went quiet. The comments blew up again. [Watcher: ???

He hung up ???] [Watcher: AND BLOCKED HER?? Holy hell??] [Watcher: What the hell move was that?!] [Watcher: That's not the script! Ashford, wake up!] [Watcher: Does he know?

Does he know Sienna set her up?] [Watcher: So what if he knows! Too late! Dirtbag!] The driver checked me in the mirror again. "Mr. Ashford. That was Ms.

Kessler." "Her name doesn't get said in front of me again." I didn't raise my voice. I didn't have to. He faced forward. "Yes, sir." The phone rang again. My assistant this time.

I took it. "Mr. Ashford, is it finished?" He sounded careful. Feeling around for the mood. "It's done. I'm divorced." Flat.

Like reading a receipt. "Should I arrange a settlement for Ms. Bennett?" "Not a cent. We follow the prenup." I remembered the prenup. She'd signed it. She walked out with nothing.

That was the whole point of it, back when Sienna told him the baby wasn't his.

He made his wife end the pregnancy, then made sure she left with empty hands. "Send someone to pack her things and get them out of the estate. Don't ship them to the wrong address.

Collect the keys." He choked on whatever he was going to say next. "Of course, sir. And the chairman? He's always thought highly of Ms. Bennett." The old man.

My father in this book. He'd treated her decently, which was more than his son ever managed.

He was also the one who threw the son out later without a dollar. "I'll handle him myself." I switched hands with the phone. "Now. Back to the office.

Every department head in the conference room in one hour. I want the latest financials and every project status. All of them. Current." "Thirty minutes.

Anyone not in that room can hand me a resignation letter instead." "Yes, sir! Right away!" His voice snapped tight, and the line went dead.

The comments were scrolling too fast to read. [Watcher: This isn't a divorce, this is a scorched earth campaign.] [Watcher: Cold. Ice cold.

Three years of her life fed to a dog.] Chapter 4 [Watcher: Blocks Sienna, dumps Corrie, goes back to WORK? What is even living inside that man?] [Watcher: Career brain unlocked?

He's out here chasing money now?] [Watcher: The grovel arc script is confirmed shredded. Hahaha. (crying laugh)] I got to the office and pushed the door open.

Something came at me in a cloud of perfume. Sienna. Her eyes were red like she'd been crying, and her voice came out soft and sticky. "Ro! Why did you block me?

What did I do?" I stepped aside. She caught nothing but air and almost went down on the carpet. "Ro, baby?" She turned around with her face already arranged into hurt.

I walked past her and sat down behind the desk. Then I looked up. "Who let you in here?" "Your assistant said you got divorced.

I was worried about you." She came closer. "Get out." "What?" Sienna went still. "Now. This second.

Out of my office." I pointed at the door. "You don't come near it again." Her face went white, then blotchy red. "Ro, how can you—" "Security." I hit the intercom line.

The comments lost it. [Watcher: Holy hell, he's cold! He's doing this to HER too?!] [Watcher: Sienna's face just curdled hahaha!] [Watcher: That slap was LOUD.

So good!] [Watcher: Did Ashford take the wrong pills this morning?!] [Watcher: I think he just hates everyone equally?] Building security came in fast. "Mr. Ashford?" "Walk Ms.

Kessler out. She doesn't enter this building again without my approval." I looked down at the file in front of me and left her standing there. "Yes, sir." The guard turned. "Ms.

Kessler. This way, please." "Roman! You bastard! I'm never speaking to you again!" She screamed it while they moved her toward the door, half escort, half carry.

The office got quiet. The comments kept rolling. [Watcher: He actually threw her out! Absolute legend!] [Watcher: The other woman just got demoted to background character.

The plot is in PIECES.] [Watcher: I don't understand this direction but I am deeply shaken.] [Watcher: Redemption arc? No.

This isn't redemption, this is a brain transplant.] I let them talk. Then the estate manager called and said my father wanted me home. I drove out to the Ashford estate.

The old man was on the couch, and his face had gone gray with temper. Cora was there too, which I hadn't planned on.

She stood in the middle of the living room with an open suitcase at her feet, laying folded clothes into it. She heard my shoes on the floor. Her hands paused.

She didn't turn around, and then she kept packing. The old man saw me and slammed his palm down on the arm of the couch. "You worthless little—you explain this to me.

Right now." "You've seen the paperwork, Dad.

It's finished." I set my keys on the table. "She packs, then she goes." "Goes?" He got to his feet. "Who said one word about her going?" He crossed the room to Cora and clamped his hand down on the lid of her suitcase. hapter 5