You're Just My Ex-Husband,My Lord-Chapter 14- planned by Clark

Laurent bit her lip tightly. She glanced at her daughter but said nothing. She lowered her head to unbutton her jacket.

Her entire outfit was from Adeline: jeans, a hoodie, and a windbreaker. As she was unbuttoning her windbreaker, her trembling, cold hand was suddenly grasped.

She looked up into Dave’s dark eyes. She wasn’t sure if she was mistaken, but she thought she saw a flash of apology in his gaze.

However, before she could process it, he released her hand and began removing his expensive suit jacket.

"Put this on," he said.

Then he wrapped the suit around their daughter’s small body and picked her up, heading toward his car.

Laurent stared at his back—just a shirt, no suit jacket—and bitterly thought to herself, He must think my clothes are cheap, which is why he’s giving her his suit.

Then, in the next moment, it hit her—damn it! He was using the excuse of putting his jacket on their daughter to take her away. How despicable and underhanded was that?

Without thinking, she rushed after him.

"Dave!"

By the time she caught up, he was already at his Bentley with their daughter in his arms. She ran in front of him, blocking his path as he reached for the car door to place their daughter inside.

Dave held their daughter with one arm and glanced at her coldly, sneering.

"Didn’t you say you were worried about her catching a cold? What are you doing now?"

Laurent was momentarily speechless, caught off guard by his words. In fact, she was feeling anxious, angry, and a little scared. She was afraid he would just take their daughter away like this.

But now, in front of their daughter, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything too harsh or final. She wanted to talk about the divorce later, in private, when she could explain it carefully to Emma without hurting her fragile heart.

So, in the end, she could only say indirectly,

"Emma is used to my care..."

Laurent meant to express that Emma was used to her care and couldn’t live without her, so Dave should entrust their daughter to her.

She thought that someone as sharp as Dave would surely understand the implication of her words.

But to her surprise, he innocently replied,

"It seems like I haven’t stopped you from taking care of her."

Laurent glared at him in frustration and reached out to take Emma from his arms.

"Then let me take her to my place."

"To your place?"

As he spoke, he seemingly nonchalantly switched Emma to the other arm as Laurent’s hands reached out, leaving her with nothing but empty air.

She was so furious, but there was nothing she could say.

Dave narrowed his eyes, his voice dripping with coldness.

"Aren’t you going home?"

Laurent looked at him and felt her anger flare up again. What was he trying to pull here?

They were getting a divorce—how could she possibly go back to that house?

Was he enjoying torturing her like this, dragging out the divorce for his own pleasure?

For a moment, she couldn’t control her emotions and, not caring that Emma was standing there, she turned her gaze away and coldly replied,

"I won’t be going back there."

It’s easy to imagine how furious Dave was to hear this, but before he could explode, someone else beat him to it. It was the little person in his arms, who tilted her head with a mischievous look and asked,

"Are you two getting a divorce?"

As soon as their daughter spoke, both Dave and Laurent froze. A sharp pain spread through Laurent’s chest. She didn’t know how Dave felt, but for her, hearing the word "divorce" come from her daughter’s mouth was both ironic and heartbreaking.

She imagined that Dave probably didn’t have much of a reaction. After all, he didn’t have much emotional attachment to their daughter, and more importantly, the divorce that ended this reluctant marriage was likely a relief for him.

Laurent stood there, silent, unsure how to respond to her daughter’s question.

It was Dave who broke the silence. Holding their daughter in one arm, he lowered his gaze and, with a calm and composed expression, asked her,

"Why do you ask that?"

The little girl blinked her big, dark eyes and, without hesitation, answered,

"Mom said she won’t go home anymore. In our class, Lucas’s parents don’t live together. Lucas said they are divorced."

Laurent didn’t know whether to feel sorrow or something else upon hearing her daughter’s words.

In today’s society, with such a high divorce rate, even small children have become accustomed to the idea. They might not fully understand what divorce means, but the word has already deeply embedded itself in their limited vocabulary.

Laurent’s gaze fell on Dave, whose brow was furrowed deeply. Clearly, he too was stunned by their daughter’s unusually mature remark.

The two adults stood there, speechless, in front of a three-year-old child.

Before they could come up with a suitable answer for their daughter, the little girl spoke again:

"I know you’ll ask me which one I choose. I won’t choose either. I want to live by myself."

After saying this, she added,

"Lucas said that at the time, his parents made him choose who to stay with. He said they kept asking him, and it was so annoying."

Laurent couldn’t hold back any longer, and a tear fell from her eye.

She had promised herself she wouldn’t cry about this anymore, but hearing her daughter speak like this, it felt as if her heart was being gnawed at by thousands of ants, a pain that was deep and consuming.

Seeing her suddenly burst into tears, Dave’s brow furrowed even more deeply.

He turned, bent down, and placed their daughter in the car, quietly instructing her,

"I need to talk to Mom for a moment."

Then, he closed the car door.

The two of them stood there in front of the car. Laurent, eyes lowered, still couldn’t shake the sadness from her daughter’s words. She had once believed her daughter would never hesitate to choose her, but now the little girl had said she didn’t want to choose either, and just wanted to live on her own.

This was a huge blow to her. As a mother who had been by her daughter’s side for over three years, her heart was filled with the sense of abandonment and loss.

Dave, on the other hand, stood there with his hands in his pockets, watching her, his brows tightly knitted, his lips pressed in a thin line.

Dave could tell that Laurent was in pain, but he still couldn’t understand why, if she was suffering this much, she was so determined to get a divorce.

In the past five years of their relationship, she had been so understanding, considerate, and gentle that he had thought she was without temper. It wasn’t until this time, when she insisted on getting a divorce, that he realized how stubborn her temper could be.

No, actually, five years ago, when she insisted on liking him, insisted on marrying him, he should have realized this.

But at the time, he hadn’t taken her seriously, so he never paid attention to her temperament or character.

Of course, he wouldn’t understand. For Laurent now, whether to continue this marriage or end it was a painful choice.

With the two pains intertwined, out of instinctive self-preservation, she naturally chose the one with less pain.

That was divorce.

Divorce would sever everything—no longer having to endure this loveless marriage, no longer facing his past with Clark. For her, it was liberation.

Maybe her daughter’s reaction would bring some sadness, but it wouldn’t be fatal.

The two stood there, silently facing each other. Just as Dave was about to say something, his phone rang.

It was the ringtone of his phone that snapped Laurent out of her sorrow. She glanced at him and wiped the tears from her face.

From the moment she heard his ringtone, Laurent knew who it was from.

With his gentle tone and the worried expression on his face, only Clark could receive such treatment from him.

Clark must have said something on the other end of the line. Dave looked at her for a moment before asking,

"Now?"

Clark continued speaking on the other end, and Laurent vaguely heard sounds of crying. Then, Dave’s expression changed.

"I’ll go right now."

Laurent didn’t know what had gotten into her, but after he hung up the phone, she mockingly asked him,

"Do you think it’s such a coincidence that you both happened to arrive at the café I always go to while waiting for my daughter to finish school? And then you just happened to talk loud enough for me to overhear?"

Laurent hadn’t intended to say anything like that, but at that moment, it was all she could think of, wanting to provoke tension between him and Clark.

But it wasn’t really provoking, because what she said was the truth.

There was a café next to the kindergarten that she liked a lot because of their coffee. She would often arrive early every afternoon to grab a cup and relax while waiting for her daughter to finish school.

She was sure Dave didn’t know about this habit of hers, because he had never really paid attention to her. How could he have known such little preferences?

So, she assumed that everything that afternoon had been carefully planned by Clark.