After I Stopped Loving Him novel Chapter 216

Isabella barely had time to check her phone before Laura rushed in.

“Isabella, are Jesse and the others here already?” Laura called out as soon as she spotted her. Her hair was a little messy and she looked flustered. “Am I late? The traffic was insane. I swear, every time I hit a jam, I wish I could just fly over it all.”

“They’re here,” Isabella said, linking her arm with Laura’s. “I asked Ethan to help keep them entertained. Don’t worry, we’re fine. Let’s head over.”

As they walked toward the elevators, Laura lowered her voice. “Wait, Ethan’s here too?”

The elevator was packed with people, so neither of them said much until they stepped out onto their floor.

Isabella let out a breath. “Just my luck. I ran into him before I even got out of my car. He probably came for dinner before whatever he’s got planned tonight. He’s always busy, barely comes home.”

Sometimes, he wouldn’t come home for days. Maybe he stayed at one of his other places—he had more than a few, and this was just the one he was living in now. In her past life, whenever he didn’t come home, she would call and text him nonstop, asking where he was, clinging so tightly that eventually he just stopped answering completely. Their marriage was like holding sand—squeeze too hard and it slipped away even faster.

Laura didn’t say anything else about it.

They stopped in front of a private dining room. Isabella knocked and then pushed the door open.

“Sorry I’m late, everyone,” Laura said as she stepped inside. “I kept you all waiting. I owe you a few drinks later.”

The food had already been ordered, and soon the dishes started arriving. Conversation flowed easily around the table. Jesse and Ethan mostly listened, letting Isabella and Laura take the lead since it was their project. Mr. Byron and Mr. Baker had already been interested, but Isabella’s analysis made them even more eager. Their main business was novels and games, but it was tough to make money on novels unless one blew up on new media platforms—and that was rare, since those platforms mostly targeted older readers with spending power.

Short web dramas were becoming a thing, but the quality was usually lacking, so most people didn’t take them seriously yet.

When Isabella talked about the future of web dramas, she sounded so confident that Ethan couldn’t stop watching her. People always say a confident woman is the most beautiful, and right then, Isabella was exactly that in Ethan’s eyes. He wondered who had filled her with such certainty about the industry’s future. She spoke so persuasively that you couldn’t help but want to invest right away.

By the end of the meal, both Mr. Byron and Mr. Baker had agreed to work with Isabella’s studio. As soon as her first web drama was ready, their marketing teams would help promote it, eager to dive into this new field.