No Second Chances Ex-husband (Lauren and Ethan) novel Chapter 85

LAUREN’S POV

I still stood there on the spot, frozen, my mind going in circles, asking myself if this job was really worth it. Was it really worth all the sacrifices? The late nights, the loneliness, the way I barely had time to watch my daughter grow? Like the manager just said, I could drop the job and look for another. I had the money, I had the qualifications, I had the reputation. So why was I disturbing myself, tearing my peace apart, being pushed around like a chess piece on their board? Why should I leave everything I had built here… because of what? Because the headquarters suddenly decided they needed me?

“Are you there?” The manager’s voice cut sharply into my thoughts, dragging me back to reality.

“Yes,” I said finally, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I rubbed my arm absentmindedly, trying to ground myself.

“Please, do this for all of us. We would really appreciate it,” the manager said, his tone almost pleading now.

I let out a small sigh, the sound heavy in the quietness of my living room. My eyes roamed across the space.

I bit down hard on my lower lip, holding back the storm of emotions building inside me.

“And when am I supposed to leave?” I asked at last, pinching my temple between my fingers. The pain there was sharp, born from annoyance and stress. My voice made no attempt to hide it.

“I sent the date along with the email. Didn’t you see the date?” he asked, almost cautiously, as if he already anticipated my reaction.

“No,” I replied quickly, pulling the phone slightly away from my ear to open the email again. My fingers moved faster this time, scrolling down to the bottom.

“Crap,” I faintly heard his voice through the phone. That one word was enough to make me pause. Why did he say that? What exactly was waiting for me at the bottom?

My eyes found the bold black numbers.

I blinked. My chest tightened. That couldn’t be right.

With a shaky breath, I opened my phone calendar, almost afraid of what I would see. The digital date glared back

at me.

One day. They gave me one day.

My jaw tightened. My pulse quickened. “You all are really funny, you know that?” I said, pressing the phone back against my ear. My voice dripped with disbelief and frustration. “You send me this kind of important news out of nowhere, with no warning at all, and now you also expect me to leave tomorrow?”

“I was just as surprised as you are,” he said, his voice laced with unease. “It’s not me who scheduled when you

should leave.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. My free hand clenched into a fist at my side.

“And how am I meant to get everything together in less than a few hours?” I snapped, my words sharp, each one bursting out like sparks from firewood. “I haven’t even packed up, I haven’t made arrangements for anything at all and it’s already evening.” My voice rose with every word, the stress pouring out like boiling water from a cracked pot.

“Lauren…” he sighed, and I could hear the hesitation in his tone. “This is what comes with this kind of job. Sudden relocations, urgent demands, it’s the price of being at the top. I apologize again, I really do, but I’m sure you’ll be able to get everything together by this evening.”

I removed the phone from my ear once more, staring at it like I was staring directly at the manager, my face tight with anger. My jaw locked, and my eyes narrowed at the black screen as though it held all the blame. He could talk so casually, like it was nothing, like he hadn’t just asked me to uproot my entire life in less than twenty–four hours.

And without another word, I cut the call after staring at the phone for a few seconds too long. The silence that followed seemed heavier than the manager’s voice, filling the room with a weight I couldn’t push away. I dropped the phone hard on the center table, the sharp clatter echoing through the living room. The sound was loud enough that even Aria glanced up briefly from her plate in the dining area.

I sank down onto the couch, the cushions barely giving me any comfort as I buried my face in my palms. A tired, frustrated sigh escaped my lips. My shoulders slumped forward, and I stayed like that for a while, listening to the muffled sound of the clock ticking against the wall, as though it were mocking me with every second passing.

Of course, it was easy for him to talk. Easy for him to tell me to “just do this for all of us.” He wasn’t the one dropping everything to go live in a new country. He wasn’t the one packing up a life he had spent years building, saying goodbye to routines, to faces, to the fragile sense of stability I had only just managed to create for myself and for Aria.

And this wasn’t even the first time they had done this to me. No. They had done it before. They had uprooted me once, sending me off to start a new life here in Italy. Back then, I convinced myself it was a fresh start. I didn’t have much to lose in America, not at that time. Everything had already fallen apart – my marriage, my trust, my peace. It felt like maybe fate was giving me an escape, a chance to run, a chance to leave the mess behind.

And honestly, I wanted to get away from Roman. Not because I hated him I could never say I hated him but because being near him after what happened that day made me feel uneasy, unsettled, like the ground beneath me was constantly shifting. Putting miles, even oceans, between us seemed like the only way I could breathe again.

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