The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 717

Chapter 717 Only Because It’s Me 
Julius swallowed. The word wife suddenly felt like a chain he had clamped on her. She deserved desire that owed nothing to titles or contracts. 
Her smile glimmered in the dim room, and he stared, stunned, as if a dawn he’d forgotten how to name were rising behind her lips. 
He had once judged her looks ordinary, yet now every line of her face fitted some secret hunger inside him, turning plainness into something devastatingly necessary. 
The thought shocked him–he wanted to kneel, to pour everything he owned, every breath, every future day, at her feet just to keep that light on her face. 
His throat rasped. “Only… because it’s you.” The truth slid out, raw and helpless, before fear could varnish it. 
Her answering smile widened; then her warm, pliant body pressed to his, heat and fragile scent stealing the final inch of space between them. 
She murmured near his ear, voice trembling yet clear, “Julius, I love you.” 
The sentence detonated inside him; whatever restraint remained shattered, falling like glass beads cut from a string. 
A single need filled him–possess her, belong to her, become the center of her gaze until no other man existed in the world she saw. 
Ex–husband? He spat at the thought; that label could burn in hell. 
If she loved him, he would deepen that love until it drowned them both; he would learn every way this body could please her. 
And if some future tempted her upward, he would simply rise higher, become the summit she could never climb past. 
***** 
Quinn woke beneath tangled sheets, every bone humming with exhausted ache; pleasure still flickered under the soreness like a glowing coal. 
Strength gone, she barely lifted her arms before Julius scooped her up, carried her into the steamy bathroom, and rinsed the sweat and salt from her skin himself. 
While warm water slid away, the memory of his urgent rhythm tugged her mouth upward; she almost laughed at how little his claimed indifference had survived the mattress. 
Hypnosis might have blurred five years of feelings, yet on that bed his body had chased her as though making up for every missing heartbeat. 
It felt as if he meant to pack those blank years tight with new memories, each one branded hot onto her skin. 
She allowed herself a secret hope: it might not take long before he fell in love with her all over again. 
She recalled nights before the hypnosis, when his gaze settled on her and left her chest thrumming; that trust surged back now, unbroken. 
Julius buttoned his shirt, voice calm but decisive. “A week from now, Whitethorn Group is hosting a banquet. I want you with me.” 
She pulled a towel tighter across her chest. “Me too?” 
Julius turned, eyes steady. “Are you unwilling?” 
She met his gaze, curiosity outweighing hesitation. “Why do you want me there?” 
“You’re my wife and the supreme authority of the Whitethorn He answered without pause, family. Now that you’ve returned, the people of Jexburgh need to know.” 
Understanding warmed her chest; he wasn’t hiding her–he was preparing to show the whole city she was back, intact, and untouchable. 
Quinn felt the decision click into place like a well–oiled latch. She had spent enough hours debating secrecy; tonight she simply refused to keep anything folded out of sight. 
“Okay. I’ll be ready.” The promise left her in a calm, steady voice, steadier than her pulse. 
A week stretched ahead, wide and sunlit in her imagination, more than enough space to sharpen plans, gather favors, and walk in prepared. 
***** 
The fluorescent hum in the holding cell had drilled through Trent’s skull all night, so when the guard finally unlatched the door at dawn and murmured, “Bail’s posted,” relief felt thin, almost brittle. 
On the sidewalk, his prepaid phone sputtered with a call from the Whitethorn legal team; their clipped voices promised court papers within days, not sympathy. 
The threat landed on top of his exhaustion like wet concrete; only then did regret rise, sour and belated: even now, broken as he was, they still meant to drag him into court. 
His mind lurched back to that afternoon outside the gala, to the single stupid instinct that had made him call Quinn’s name; if his throat had stayed shut, none of this might exist. 
But what, exactly, had he been chasing when the word left him? Pity? Nostalgia? Some flicker of the power he used to wear like cologne? 
Maybe, he admitted, he’d wanted her to remember the nights they’d plotted companies and futures on his balcony and, moved by the echo of it, reach down to haul him back up. 
With the doors she could open now, a single nod from her would snap the chain around his ankles; the thought made hope and humiliation twist together in his gut. 
The cab dropped him at the mouth of a narrow alley that smelled of rot and damp newspapers; halfway down stood the apartment he currently called home–one sour, peeling room above a noodle shop. 
The door stuck, then gave, and immediately Jacinda’s shrill accusation sliced through the stale air: “Sidonie, did you steal my gold ring?” 
Sidonie’s laugh was thin and brittle. “A cheap ring like that? You think I’d bother?” 
Jacinda snarled, “Look at that attitude. You still think you’re Ms. Stonehurst? Your parents cut you off. If my brother wasn’t feeding you for the kid’s sake, you’d be sleeping under a bridge!” 
Sidonie shot back, “And why not blame your useless brother? He lied, told me his company was going public, pretended he had talent. Truth is, everything he flashed came from Quinn!” 
Jacinda’s voice broke into a scream. “If not for you, he and Quinn would still be fine, and we’d all be living the high life. You’re the curse that ruined us!” 
Wood scraped against concrete, then the flat thud of bodies colliding–within seconds the shouting dissolved into the heavy, frantic sound of a fist meeting flesh. 
The racket punched at Trent’s temples, each shriek and crash bouncing painfully inside the skull that had already survived the holding cell’s neon torture. 
Stepping fully into the room, he finally saw them—Jacinda and Sidonie tangled on the floor, hair gripped, nails out, two wild cats locked over a scrap of pride. 
In the far corner Penelope crouched, Violet clutched tight to her chest, both pairs of eyes round and shining in the half–light like startled fawns. 
The sight twisted him; his mother had once commanded banquet halls with a single clap, yet now she barely breathed, as if silence might make her invisible. 
She refused trips back to the village, avoided crowded streets, flinched whenever a neighbor’s window slammed–everything about her crouched inward, fearful of being recognized as yesterday’s queen. 
Yet at night she still murmured through memories of silk dresses and champagne brunches, polishing them like relics no one else could see. 
Penelope pushed upright, her voice a timid flutter. “Trent, you’re finally back. You stayed out all night-were you on the overnight shift?” 
“Yeah,” he muttered, letting the lie hang because it was kinder than the truth. 
Penelope glanced at the flailing figures. “Please, make your sister and your wife stop before someone gets hurt.” 
Trent nodded, strode forward, and yanked the two women apart, knuckles whitening on each wrist. To Sidonie he growled, “Hand over the cash.” 
“What cash? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The words came fast, but guilt flickered, unmistakable, in the shadow of her lashes. 
“Crack!” The sound of Trent’s palm meeting her cheek snapped through the room, silencing even the baby’s thin breathing. 
The slap came out of nowhere, hot and sharp, snapping Sidonie’s head toward the hallway door. Sound narrowed to the hiss in her ear and the rush of blood behind it. Trent loomed. barking, “Quit playing the victim. Other than you, who else is stealing from this place?” 
Her palm flew to the burning print on her cheek. “You–you hit me?” The words scraped out, half disbelief, half fury.