Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 116: .If life was a movie, this would be where Isabella magically starts getting her shit together.Unfortunately, if Isabella’s life was a movie it would probably be some sort of excruciating indie film in a foreign language with an ambiguous ending and no subtitles for the sake of pretension because in real life a meltdown and a heart-to-heart don’t really fix anything.There are unexpected repercussions that Isabella doesn’t see coming. Spending the weekend with Archibald is nice, but for a solid two weeks afterwards she struggles to leave her apartment. It’s a strange, nebulous fear that she never had, even when she was small and the monsters were out in the open and not just under her bed, but it’s hard to shake now. It feels like being hunted, even though Isabella knows that it’s ridiculous.Nathaniel’s opportunistic, not dedicated, and Isabella was merely convenient, not a target.She’s simply not that special and, realistically,
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 117: .“Good luck,” Isabella says, charmed and just a bit breathless. “Knock ‘em dead.”“That’s the plan,” Archibald replies. “Thank you.”And then he’s walking back towards the ring like he hadn’t just grabbed Isabella’s heart by the throat and slammed it up against a wall. A metaphorical wall. A very metaphorical and definitely not literal wall, and Isabella definitely (metaphorically and not literally) doesn’t have to press the flat of her palm to her chest to take in a breath after. The headgear goes back on and the two men in the ring, the other in sky blue, bow to one another.Archibald’s preferred weapon is a jian. It’s one that Isabella can appreciate, even if she wasn’t ever that skilled with it, but it particularly suits Archibald in the way that it requires precision. It’s a gentleman’s weapon, after all, and Archibald wields it like it’s merely an extension of his arm.He’s fast and his movements are so liquid smooth that Isa
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 118:.“Father wants to talk to you about coming back.”Isabella’s mug is halfway to her mouth when Chantelle drops that sentence like a bomb. It slips out of her fingers and orange juice spills across the table; Chantelle rolls her eyes and does nothing, as if daring that puddle to creep closer to the edge.“What?”“Are you deaf now, too? Father wants to talk to you about coming back. He misses you, Izzy.”“Pull the other one,” Isabella snaps.“Always so dramatic. Fine. Father has admitted at long last that your quality of work was never in question and that your firing was a result of temper and duress. He says that he’ll take you back, no questions asked, if you’ll agree to stop kissing our family's competition in the newspapers.”There are always questions asked. Nothing in this world has ever come from her father that didn’t have strings attached. It’s taken a long time, but Isabella always learns her lessons. She also picks out what
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 119:.“Oh my god.”Isabella waves at Dara where she’s standing next to her car. She’s dropped her eggs and doesn’t seem to care that yolk is getting all over her boots. Gross.“Sup.”“Isabella Huo, don’t you dare say ‘sup’ to me when you look like that. You look like you got hit by a truck and lost.”Isabella winces and gingerly wipes at her face. It’s not sticky anymore, and dried blood comes off in flakes. Double gross.The struggle is real.(Isabella thinks she might have a concussion.)“Can you yell at me later? I think I’m concussed.”Between one breath and the next, Dara yanks open the car door, and then she’s really, really close to Isabella’s face. She tries not to, but she can’t help the reflexive flinch after everything today that has her plastering her whole back against the seat, even though Dara’s hands aren’t anything but gentle when she reaches out for her.Her face drops when she pushes Isabella’s bangs aside and sees what
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 120: .“Sweetheart,” He says, “of course you’re not fine. No one in the world would expect you to be fine.”Isabella wants to go out into the woods and bury herself facedown in the ground. Not just because of how incredibly not fine she actually is, but because having that not-fine validated so easily makes her want to die. This isn’t her first rodeo with her father that had her coming out of it with a head injury, but it’s the first time she’s actually stood up for herself.She keeps waiting for it to feel better, but all she feels is sad.Archibald’s uncomplicated affection is too much for her to be expected to handle.“How did you…?” Isabella trails off.“Your roommate called me,” Archibald explains. “She had to leave and thought it best if you weren’t alone when you woke up.”“How much did she tell you?”Archibald’s face goes cloudy like a thunderhead, even though his hands on Isabella’s body aren’t anything but gentle.“Enough to be
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 121: .The silence is deafening.Isabella can hear every single beat of her heart and her breaths are quick and shallow.“Can you say something, please? I’m kind of freaking out here.”Isabella’s question, more of a plea than anything else, is what brings Archibald back to life. The arm draped over Isabella’s waist squeezes tight but not too tight, dragging her close enough that a bug would have trouble finding space to crawl between them.“I’m going to be entirely honest with you,” Archibald says, voice tight and sounding like he’s holding his shit together through sheer force of will and might actually be failing at it, “There aren’t enough words in existence to describe how upset I am right now. For someone to treat anyone like that is horrific. To know that someone has treated you like that is unbearable.”Archibald sounds wrecked, actually, and Isabella’s doubly glad she can’t see him. She doesn’t want to see what the man’s face look
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 122:.Please wear this today.That’s all the card says when Isabella opens the envelope after staring at it and the box on her kitchen table with wary trepidation.It’s obvious, of course, who it’s from.Who else would have a good enough idea of Isabella’s schedule and also be meticulous enough to have a package hand-delivered to her front step just in time for her to find it? She snorts a little.Archibald is a little ridiculous like that, but it seems to make him happy, and being able to make him happy is a tempting enough reward that Isabella doesn’t call him out on his specific brand of insanity. God, the man is extra—completely out of his tree—and Isabella likes him so much.You gonna open it sometime this year or just wait for it to explode? is what the voice that sounds suspiciously like Dara demands in the back of her head. Even her mental Dara is usually right, Isabella decides with a shrug, and reaches out to pull off the black
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 123:.Archibald’s answer comes in a quietly murmured, “Hold still,” and a repositioning that puts Isabella between his thighs and her back against Archibald’s chest. It’s easy, then, to tip her head back to look at the stars, equally easy in turn to press warm, mouthy kisses to Archibald’s lips and jawline, the column of her neck. Archibald makes a pleased, indulgent noise from the back of his throat and adjusts his hold to accommodate her better.“That’s lovely,” he says, “Always such a sweetheart.”Isabella shivers a little, even in the warm night air, and tries hard not to think about what might happen if she spread her thighs right here and asked if he’d like to indulge her in something else. She doesn’t, mostly because the idea of getting sand in sensitive places is enough to put her off the idea entirely.“When you, uh. When you say private, how private are we talking?”Archibald goes very still, and Isabella can’t resist a glance