The Return of his Ex Wife

Sophia’s POV

Sophia Carter woke before the alarm rang.

For a few seconds, she remained still beneath the white silk sheets, listening to the quiet hum of the air conditioner and the faint ticking of the clock on the wall.

The room was dark, but a thin line of morning light slipped through the curtains. It rested across the ceiling, pale and weak, as if even the sun was reluctant to enter the Guilford mansion.

Sophia placed one hand over her stomach.

The baby moved.

A small, gentle flutter pressed against her palm.

Her lips curved into a tired smile.

“Good morning,” she whispered.

Another movement answered her.

For that brief moment, the loneliness inside her became bearable.

The baby was the only person in the house who never made her feel unwanted.

Sophia slowly pushed herself upright. Her back ached from sleeping in the same position, and her ankles were swollen beneath the hem of her nightdress. She had entered her eighth month of pregnancy, and every movement required more effort than it used to.

Still, she refused to complain.

Felix disliked complaints.

He said pregnant women became overly emotional and expected too much attention. His mother agreed with him. According to them, pregnancy was not an illness. It was a duty.

Sophia reached for the silk robe hanging over the chair.

The other half of the bed was untouched.

Felix had not come home.

Again.

She stared at the empty space beside her.

At first, she had waited for him. She would remain awake until midnight, listening for the sound of his car entering the driveway. Sometimes, she prepared dinner, reheated it and waited another hour. When he finally came home, she would ask whether he had eaten.

He always answered the same way.

“I’m tired, Sophia.”

After a while, she stopped asking.

Sophia checked the time on her phone.

Six forty-five in the morning.

There was still no message from him.

She looked down at her stomach and forced herself to smile again.

“Your father is busy,” she whispered, even though the baby could not understand her. “But he will come around.”

She had repeated those words so often that she almost believed them.

Almost.

After dressing, Sophia walked carefully toward the bathroom. The room felt too large for one person. Everything in the master suite had been selected to reflect Felix’s taste—dark wood, silver fixtures, cold marble and expensive furniture that looked beautiful but never felt warm.

Even their bedroom seemed less like a place where a married couple lived and more like a hotel room neither of them had chosen.

Sophia washed her face, tied her long black hair behind her head and studied her reflection.

Her face was rounder than before. Pregnancy had softened her features, but dark circles remained beneath her ocean-blue eyes. Her lips were naturally red, yet they looked pale that morning.

She placed her hand against the mirror.

“You’re going to be fine,” she told herself.

The words sounded unconvincing.

Sophia left the bedroom and walked downstairs.

The Guilford mansion was already awake. Servants moved quietly through the halls, carrying trays and arranging flowers. No one spoke above a whisper. Even after five years of marriage, Sophia had never become accustomed to the way everyone behaved inside the house.

It was as if the walls were listening.

As she reached the dining room, she heard a woman’s voice.

“You’re late.”

Felix’s mother, Margaret Guilford, sat at the head of the table. She wore a pale blue dress, a string of pearls and an expression of permanent disappointment.

Her eyes moved over Sophia slowly. They paused at her loose dress, then at her swollen ankles, before returning to her face.

“I apologize,” Sophia said. “I wasn’t feeling well this morning.”

“You’re pregnant, not dying.”

The servant standing nearby lowered her head.

Sophia pulled out a chair and sat down.

“I’m sorry.”

“That is all you ever say.”

Margaret lifted her teacup.

“Sorry. Thank you. Please. You were raised with nothing, yet you act as though polite words can make you suitable for this family.”

Sophia kept one hand over her stomach.

The baby shifted again.

She focused on that small movement instead of Margaret’s words.

Margaret had never accepted her as Felix’s wife. In her eyes, Sophia was an ordinary girl who had somehow trapped her son into marriage.

Margaret often reminded her that she had no wealthy family, influential relatives or business connections.

She never acknowledged that Felix had chosen Sophia.

Or that they had loved each other long before either of them had money.

“Where is Felix?” Margaret asked.

“He didn’t come home last night.”

Margaret’s eyebrows rose.

“You should know where your husband spends his nights.”

Sophia looked at her.

“I thought he was working.”

“Of course you did.”

Margaret’s laugh was quiet and cruel.

Sophia tried to ignore the uneasiness tightening in her chest.

Felix had been working late more often during the past few months. He had also stopped touching her, stopped asking about the baby and stopped looking at her for longer than a few seconds.

Whenever she asked whether something was wrong, he told her she was imagining things.

Pregnancy had made her emotional. She knew that. Perhaps she was simply frightened because everything was changing.

The marriage that had once felt safe now seemed to be slipping through her fingers.

Margaret placed her teacup on the table.

“I heard the doctor has scheduled another appointment for you.”

“Yes. Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Felix will not be attending.”

Sophia looked up.

“He said he would try.”

“He won’t.”

Margaret’s certainty unsettled her.

“He has an important meeting.”

“Felix always has an important meeting.”

“His company is expanding. I understand that.”

Margaret studied her as though she had said something foolish.

“You understand nothing about the responsibilities of this family. Felix needs a wife who can stand beside him in business, not one who spends her days discussing hospital appointments and baby clothes.”

Sophia swallowed.

“I never asked him to abandon his work.”

“You asked him to marry you. That was already enough.”

The words struck harder than Sophia expected.

She had heard similar insults before, but that morning she was too tired to pretend they did not hurt.

She pressed her lips together.

Margaret leaned back in her chair.

“Do you know who Felix met last night?”

The question made Sophia’s heartbeat change.

“No.”

“Alice Laurent.”

The name was familiar.

Everyone in Felix’s business circle knew the Laurent family. They owned one of the largest jewelry companies in the country and had recently begun investing in technology and real estate.

Sophia had seen Alice’s photograph in magazines. She was beautiful, elegant and confident. She belonged to the kind of world Margaret believed Sophia should have come from.

“Why did he meet her?” Sophia asked.

Margaret’s eyes gleamed.

“That is something you should ask your husband.”

“I will.”

“You should also learn from her.”

Sophia frowned.

“Learn what?”

“How to be useful.”

The room became quiet.

Margaret picked up a piece of toast and spread butter over it with careful movements.

“Alice understands business. She knows how to conduct herself in public, how to speak to investors and how to support a powerful man. She does not spend her days wandering around this house looking frightened.”

Sophia looked down at her hands.

“I’m not frightened.”

“No? Then why do you look as though you are waiting to be dismissed?”

Sophia had no answer.

Perhaps because she had been waiting for years.

Waiting for Felix to defend her.

Waiting for Margaret to accept her.

Waiting for the marriage she remembered to return.

Sophia had met Felix when they were children. Before wealth, business meetings and this enormous mansion, he had been the boy who shared his lunch with her and promised that one day he would marry her.

She had believed him.

Even after his family rejected her, she had believed him.

When he finally proposed, Sophia thought she had won against every doubt and every person who had told her she was not enough.

But lately, she had begun to wonder whether she had only won a place beside a man who no longer wanted her there.

A car engine sounded outside.

Sophia’s heart leaped before she could stop it.

Felix.

She pushed her chair back carefully and stood.

Margaret watched her with obvious irritation.

“Must you run to him every time he comes home?”

“I’m not running.”

Sophia walked toward the entrance.

The front doors opened before she reached them.

Felix stepped into the mansion.

He looked exhausted, but not in the way he usually looked after work. His dark hair was slightly disheveled, and his expensive black suit was wrinkled at the sleeves.

He carried his phone in one hand.

His gaze found Sophia.

For one brief second, something unreadable crossed his face.

Then his expression closed.

“You’re awake,” he said.

Sophia looked behind him.

A second car had stopped in the driveway.

Her smile faded.

“Were you alone?”

Felix’s jaw tightened.

Before he could answer, the sound of heels echoed across the marble floor outside.

A woman entered behind him.

She was tall, elegant and beautiful. Her long brown hair fell over one shoulder, and her fitted cream dress looked far too expensive to belong in the early morning.

She carried herself with the ease of someone who had never questioned whether she was welcome.

Felix turned slightly toward her.

“This is Alice Laurent,” he said.

Alice smiled at Sophia.

Not warmly.

Not apologetically.

Her gaze moved slowly over Sophia’s face, her loose dress and the hand resting protectively over her stomach.

Then she looked at Felix.

“So this is your wife?”

Felix did not correct her tone.

He did not step away from her.

He did not come closer to Sophia.

Instead, he placed one hand against the small of Alice’s back.

The gesture was intimate.

Familiar.

Sophia stared at Felix’s hand resting on Alice’s back.

For the first time, she understood why he had stopped coming home.

For the first time, she understood why Margaret had sounded so certain.

Felix was not alone.

And Alice had not come to the Guilford mansion as a guest.

She had come as if she already belonged there.

Sophia’s POV

For a moment, Sophia could not breathe.

The room seemed to shrink around her, even though the entrance hall was large enough to hold a dozen people without feeling crowded.

Felix’s hand remained on Alice’s back.

That single gesture said more than any explanation could have.

Sophia stared at it until her eyes began to sting.

Then she forced herself to look at his face.

“Who is she?” she asked, even though she already knew.

Felix’s expression hardened.

“I just told you. This is Alice Laurent.”

“I know her name.”

Alice tilted her head slightly.

The diamond earrings hanging from her ears caught the morning light. They were delicate and expensive, the kind of jewelry Felix had once promised to buy for Sophia when their business succeeded.

She had never received them.

“I’m Sophia Carter,” Alice sa