Lex finalized the divorce on a Tuesday.

Clean. Efficient. Papers signed, assets divided with surgical precision, lawyers dismissed before lunch. By evening, the penthouse no longer carried her presence—no traces left behind that couldn’t be replaced or erased. Lex told himself it was closure. He told everyone else it was inevitability.

By Wednesday, there was someone new.

Not hidden. Not discreet. A woman seated beside him at a charity gala like she’d always belonged there, hand resting on his arm with practiced ease. Younger? Smarter? Different in ways that mattered just enough. The cameras caught it immediately. Headlines followed. Speculation bloomed.

Lex didn’t correct a single assumption.

He moved through it all with that familiar, infuriating confidence—tailored suit, measured smile, a man who treated relationships the same way he treated corporations. When one no longer served his future, he exited and reinvested.

Cold. Calculated.

And yet—those who knew him well enough noticed the timing. The speed. The way he refused to sit with the loss for even a full day. As if stillness itself might catch up to him if he slowed down long enough to feel anything at all.

Lex didn’t believe in mourning.

He believed in momentum.

And if that made him a bastard— well.

He’d never pretended to be anything else.