The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 713

Chapter 713 Gavin’s Invitation 
“You haven’t left?” 
He pushed off the wall. “Heading back to Whitethorn Manor? I’ll ride along, check on Julius and Little Aurie.” 
She had seen how his mouth softened each time he mentioned the toddler; the fondness was plain. 
He’d once told her the boy carried Julius’s gray eyes but a brighter spark, powered by a frightening memory. 
In that story, Gavin had dropped the bones of a teaching skeleton across the study floor and spent half an hour clicking them back into place. 
The little one had watched, then asked, “Uncle Gavin, can I try?” 
Gavin had laughed, certain a child couldn’t manage. “It’s harder than it looks.” 
Minutes later, he’d been eating those words. 
Piece by piece, the child had rebuilt the skeleton quick, precise, unruffled. 
Gavin had stared. “You’ve practiced this before? 
“No, first time. It’s pretty easy,” the boy had said, almost bored. 
Quinn remembered Gavin falling silent, admiration and disbelief tangled behind his eyes. 
He’d confessed that, for a breath, he wondered if he was the slow one. 
Doubt was rare currency in the Huxley family, giants in medicine. 
Yet the child had minted it effortlessly and placed it in Gavin’s open palms. 
The elevator doors inched shut. In the narrow reflection, Dr. Gavin Huxley met his own eyes and felt the old word again–prodigy–settle on his shoulders like a medal that had lost its shine. 
Yet the moment he stood across from Dawn, the title slid away. The little one’s steady focus made his vaunted talent feel like a card trick exposed under noon light. 
He remembered his own twelfth birthday, fumbling with an anatomical model, needing a full afternoon and a fretful mentor. Dawn watched one demonstration, then snapped every piece into place as though following her pulse. 
After that, each visit to the manor began with him slipping an extra case of tools into the car -plastic organs, hinged joints, anything that could survive eager hands. He pretended the lessons were casual chatter. 
Every session left him more off–balance. Her gaze tracked every gesture, and her questions followed him down the driveway, demanding answers he hadn’t rehearsed. 
He would name a cranial nerve once, and she would recite its full path, then tilt her head and ask why trauma sometimes spared taste while stealing speech–questions second–year med students sweat over. 
Only then did the word genius stop sounding theatrical and start feeling clinical, like a diagnosis murmured during rounds. 
He finally felt it in his marrow–an ache equal parts awe and exhilaration. 
Were she not heir to an empire, he might have stolen her mind for the anatomy lab, consequences be damned. 
She was, plainly, a seed the earth itself had labeled Medicine in curling roots. 
But Dawn was Miss Whitethorn, first in line to everything the Whitethorn residence. possessed. 
If Julius and Quinn never had another child, every ledger and vineyard would someday circle her signature. 
No head of that family had ever worn a stethoscope. 
The future was fog, and children veered like birds, yet whenever he could, Dr. Gavin drove to the manor and unpacked another fragment of medicine for her to taste. 
Today he asked Quinn if she minded returning to the manor. She answered with the small nod people give when the idea was already theirs. 
The automatic doors exhaled disinfectant–scented warmth as Quinn stepped from the car beside Dr. Gavin. A harsh voice cracked across the lobby, “Trent, stop staring! Pick that up- you’ve scattered the supplies everywhere!” 
Quinn followed the shout. A hunched figure in janitor green crouched near an overturned bucket, and recognition rushed through her so fast it stung. 
Trent. The name thudded inside her chest like a misfired drumbeat. 
He had once breezed into parties in tailored suits, adjusting every cufflink like proof of success. Now the cotton uniform hung on him like borrowed fatigue, and cleaning tools lay scattered at his boots. 
Five years had sanded the gloss from his face; silver strands glinted at his temples where ambition used to shine. 
He could not be more than mid–thirties, yet the posture belonged to someone dealing cards to retirement. 
Trent’s lungs forgot the rhythm of breathing. The woman at the doorway was Quinn–alive, upright, regal–and the sight struck harder than the supervisor’s shout. 
For weeks, whispers had drifted through the sanitation locker: someone powerful was rehabbing here, a name the administration guarded like a state secret. 
He had shrugged it off; people like him no longer received memos, only orders. 
Now understanding slammed into place. The important figure was her. 
Of course–Madam Whitethorn. The title tasted metallic on his tongue. 
Five years ago he had watched a news crawl announce her accident and mysterious disappearance. 
He had laughed in the privacy of his flat, certain that divorcing him for Julius would prove a fool’s bargain. 
If she had not dug in her heels about leaving, he had told himself, she would still be safe beneath his roof. 
Even now, some stubborn corner of his mind clung to that belief, refusing to admit the ruin. spread at his own feet. 
The mop handle squeaked in Trent’s palms. Dirty water lapped against the bucket rim, but the sound that filled his skull was older–the light, startled laugh Quinn used to give whenever he mispronounced a menu item. That echo stayed even when the corridor emptied. 
Regret pricked the back of his throat. Each day the uniform grew shabbier, the memory of Sidonie’s perfume lost a little more color, and yet the afternoons he’d spent arguing with Quinn kept sharpening, bright as cut glass under a stray sunbeam. 
He tasted iron when he remembered how proudly he had paraded Sidonie in front of reporters, calling her his inspiration, his forever. Meanwhile, Quinn–who had dragged him from the wreck of that crash, who had signed her name beside his on a license–watched from the crowd he never saw. 
A flush crawled up his neck. Cards had been stacked in his favor then–solid capital, a clean balance sheet, a wife who believed the impossible was merely untried. He had folded those cards with bored fingers, eager for flashier stakes 
“Qu-” The syllable cracked before it finished. He straightened, meaning to call her name again, but the hallway snapped with another voice. 
“Pick that trash up! You think you’re still the great CEO? Look at your badge–janitor. Move! The cleaning supervisor’s spit almost dotted Trent’s cheek. He bent automatically, fingers scrambling after scattered rags.