Boss, Your Ex-Wife is Unreachable Now! novel Chapter 15

Willow didn't realize until she arrived at the hotel for the evening banquet that it was one of the Windsor & Co. properties.

She'd been here once before—on her nineteenth birthday.

Returning now didn't quite feel like stepping into another world. It felt more like she'd lived an entirely different life since then, and her heart had changed with it.

Just her luck: she ran into Beasley in the elevator, along with his childhood friend, York.

The banquet was being held in the duplex suite on the twenty-eighth floor, complete with a sky garden. Because there were so many guests, everyone arrived at the hotel in separate groups.

Ms. Whitmore and Professor Payne had left the Redmonds' earlier in the afternoon and hadn't come to the hotel for dinner. Willow, being the only student from her year invited to the birthday banquet, was assigned to travel ahead with the Redmonds' two youngest grandchildren.

She entered the elevator with six-year-old Quinn and nine-year-old Yana Redmond. As the doors slid shut behind them, she turned and found York grinning at her, greeting her with an overfamiliar cheerfulness. "What a coincidence—fancy running into you again."

Again?

Willow blinked, uneasy, a bad feeling creeping in.

Sure enough, a quick glance past York revealed the tall, cool figure of Beasley, standing just behind him.

The light in Willow's eyes instantly dimmed.

She shifted to the side, gently shepherding the two kids to her flanks, as if to shield them from the two men.

York seemed to catch her drift and, after he and Beasley stepped inside, wisely kept his mouth shut. Still, those striking, sly eyes of his stayed fixed on Willow.

At five-foot-six, Willow was tall for a woman. She wore a pale yellow knit dress under a long, elegant coat, her features delicate, her makeup subtle—but her expression was unmistakably distant.

She might as well have had "Not Interested" scrawled across her face.

York wasn't used to this kind of cold shoulder from Willow and found himself oddly thrown by it.

Beasley, true to form, was all icy reserve. They'd finalized their divorce that very morning, and now, here they were, running into each other that evening. Coincidence? Maybe. But he didn't seem the least surprised.

After all, "accidental" encounters like this had happened before.

"Good." Willow smiled softly, reaching out to ruffle their clever little heads.

York stared at her, wide-eyed. "A fox? Come on, that's not fair—don't go filling their heads with that nonsense!"

Not fair?

Willow's lips curled in a silent, bitter smile.

Compared to what he'd done before, a little name-calling was nothing. And now he thought *she* was out of line?

"Apologize."

The order hit her ears with the chill of a winter wind.

Willow's expression stiffened; she looked up to face the man who'd just demanded an apology.