Who's Crying Now, Ex-Husband?

Chapter 433

"What's the connection between Chairman Montgomery and Giselle?"

"Was Chairman Montgomery's accident really just an accident, or...?"

"Now that Chairman Montgomery is gone, what changes will there be at Montgomery Holdings? Please comment!"

"Ms. Mila, can you tell us-?"

The barrage of cameras and microphones pressed in from all sides, reporters pelting her with question after question, the noise so suffocating she could barely breathe, let alone speak. Her chest felt about to burst. Only when a team of bodyguards forced the crowd back and Leonard ushered her into the waiting car did she get a moment of relief.

Leonard glanced at her, apologetic. "I'm sorry. Word still got out.”

Mila just shook her head.

There was no hiding a story like this: the current head of the Montgomery family, chairman of the board, dying suddenly and in public-at a gala, no less, with half the city's social elite in attendance. It was impossible to keep something so big under wraps.

But she never imagined that, under these circumstances, her own relationship with Lysander would be exposed as well. What did it matter now, with him gone? The living and the dead were worlds apart; nothing else seemed to matter.

Kingsford Peace Grove. A fine, misty rain blurred the world.

Clutching a white rose, Mila stood at the head of the small crowd, dressed in black. Leonard stood quietly at her side, holding a black umbrella over her to shield her from the rain.

Mila turned her head slightly, glancing back at the others.

This funeral hadn't been announced to the public; only the Montgomery family's closest relatives had been invited, and even most of the business associates had been left off the list. Oddly, none of the main family showed up at all.

Carrol, Lysander's cousin and closest friend, wasn't there—maybe he was away on duty with the military, that would make sense. But Conrad hadn't come either. Felicity's absence could be explained if she hadn't heard the news, but Conrad was Lysander's father. How could he not be here? Mila didn't know what to think.

Heartless? That didn't sound right.

still numb from everything that had happened. Staring at Lysander's faded portrait on the headstone, Mila felt as

she even

Attending Lysander's funeral?

lying underground forever-it

let the white rose

dress standing alone at a gravesite, white rose in hand, was captured in a thousand photos. By dawn, the news had exploded online-not just about

at the center of

funeral, she was handed a new phone with a replacement SIM card. The screen lit up with a flurry of messages, but one caught her eye: a notification that the divorce application had been withdrawn-the day after she'd secretly left the country, Lysander had filed to

of that mattered

He was gone.

outside the car window sped by, Mila's mind wandered back to those last, heated arguments with Lysander not long ago, when she'd shouted, in a

imagined those words would

become reality.

wanted was a little freedom, never to

out this

she finally had

should be happy. So why

if every

...

evening, the car stopped in front

steadying breath, and stepped inside the house she'd lived in for seven years-a place that was at once

her at the door,

"Ma'am-?"

shook her head, silencing whatever Harper had been about to say.

pushed the door

room was dark; no lights