After Divorce, She Bloomed

Unfortunately, Vanessa, being the righteous person she believed herself to be, couldn't bring herself to harm a single hair on the kind man's body.

After prescribing pills and little more ideal chattered, she had allowed him walk out the door unharmed, something that she found herself feeling proud of having done, days later.

Today, just like the rest of her days, was filed with patient appointments. She had woken up and left early, not the least bit surprised when she didn't see Ethan's car in the driveway.

Nowadays, she wasn't even sure if he slept at home.

Perhaps she should change the entrance codes to serve as a reminder, or better yet, a punishment for cheating and even having the audacity to spend nights at his mistress's place rather than trying to please her.

Not that she needed his begging or cries for forgiveness. Rather than finding it heartwarming, Vanessa realized, during one of her long thinking sessions, that's she'd find it disgusting.

Her current thoughts were interrupted by the feeling of her phone vibrating in her doctor coat.

Excusing herself, she stepped out of the room she was in and fetched the phone out of her pocket. When she glanced at it, her eyes narrowed at the sight of Cole's name.

Why was he calling now? She thought, sneaking a peak at the date to realize their next scheduled meeting wasn't until three days later. Did something happen with the divorce papers preparations?

She quickly picked the call, answering with a soft "hello?"

"Ms. Reeds, good morning." He greeted but his voice sounded anything but happy.

Vanessa feared the worst.

"Morning Cole. Is everything alright?"

"Not quite," His words had her heart jumping to her mouth. "It seems like the divorce papers are going to take longer than expected to be prepared."

"W-what?" Vanessa nearly breathed a sigh of relief, but the thing was, she wasn't completely relieved. Sure Ethan hadn't found out about her plans which was good, but that didn't mean the divorce papers taking longer was good news.

"How much longer?" She asked.

"About a month." Came Cole's answer.  happened to turn out to be one of Mr. Bennett's drinking buddies.

They've known each other since high school, so l'm most certain that he wouldn't hesitate to gabble away to Mr. Bennett."

"Shit," Vanessa muttered as she ran a hand through her hair, already feeling her frustration building up.

How could she have forgotten that Ethan had buddies at the court?!

Big mistake on her side. What was she going to do now? Did she...perhaps have to use the power of her family name to get this done quickly?

Her thumb found it's way in between her upper and lower teeth as she pondered over this.

If she did so, then she'd have no choice but to inform her parents of her situation with Ethan, something she wasn't looking forward to.

"Fuck," She cursed once more when suddenly, Lorraine rushed in her direction, seemingly out of breath.

"Nessa! There you are." The blonde stopped short in front of her and as a force of habit, nearly shoved her phone into Vanessa's face.

"Look at this!"

"Look, what am I looking at?" Vanessa asked after she had put her called with Cole on hold and adjusted back so that she could see what Lorraine was potentially shoving in her face.

The moment she did, all the color drained from her face. "This.." She muttered only after reading the first paragraph of the article Lorraine had opened on her phone.

"It's the same damn story you told that bastard Daniel!"

It felt like a bucket of cold water had been splashed onto her face as Lorelai confirmed the words she couldn't bring herself to say.

"That...that bastard betrayed me!"

She voiced at last, eyes burning with anger but her heart thumping with betrayal, yet again. Fuck, she should have listened to Michael, a voice in the back of her mind whispered.

He had warned her about Daniel, and she should have listened.

She shouldn't have trusted that snitch and should have taken more actions to make sure the story didn't leak.

Now it had and she was screwed.

It was only a matter of time before it gained popularity and Ethan sees it and her entire revenge plan would be ruined. At this point, she was pacing the small Hall, biting her nail harder as she was near panic.

What should she do?

The answer to her question came quicker than she had expected. In the midst of her state of panic, she recalled having seen something on Michael's patient information when looking through it a day before.

It stated that he was a professional in the IT department.

A professional in the IT department! Meaning he could help her solve this mess!

"I-I have to call Michael," She voiced and before Lorraine could get a word in, dialed Michael's number.

It rang for a few seconds, which felt like a century, and when it was answered, she quickly spoke.

"You were right,"

As much as Michael loved hearing those words coming from her, he had a feeling it wasn't on the subject he wanted it to be. "Right? What about?" He asked

"Daniel. He...he went behind my back and released every single thing. Everything!"

Michael's eyes narrowed at the sound of her panicked tone.

"Calm down and explain better."

Taking a few solid breaths, Vanessa did as Michael had instructed.

She calmed her rising panic and slowly spoke.

"The information about Ethan and me that I told Daniel, he must have sold it to some media personnel, now it's an article."

"What?" Michael wasn't pleased to hear this and somehow, Vanessa could imagine his brows dipping in confusion.

"I...l need your help Mr. Hayes.

You're a IT professional, right?

You can help me with this, right?" She asked, trying not to sound desperate but her voice did a bad job at it.

The line was quiet was a few seconds and just when Vanessa was about to call out to him, Michael spoke.

" I'll help you, but under one condition."

A condition? Vanessa felt a feeling of disappointment sink in, of course his help wasn't going to be for free, what did she expect.

But right now, did she really have a choice of feeling disappointed.

"What's the condition?"

"You accept my offer. Join hands with me and bring Serene Vans and Ethan Bennett, down."

Vanessa's brain temporarily froze after hearing Michael's condition and the only thing that could make it's way past her lips was one simple word.

"What?"

Ding!

[Hey Ethan, you wouldn't believe what I saw.]

Ethan's phone dinged with a text message as he was busy sorting some cases files. He paused temporarily and took a look at the message from his colleague.

After reading it, he replied.

[What did you find?]

A link appeared, followed by a text.

[I found a juicy article about a husband cheating on his wife. Shocker, the male in the article sounds a lot like you. Check the link out if you think I'm lying.]

Ethan's brows furrowed after reading the text and without hesitation, he clicked the link sent, opening the article his colleague claims to have found.