บททั้งหมดของ Falling For My Billionaire Ex : บทที่ 131 - บทที่ 139

SusanThe house was quiet when we came in.Not the cold, echoing quiet of an empty place, but the soft, drowsy quiet of a home exhaling after a very long day. Someone had left lamps burning low in the front hall. The staff had gone, and the guests, and the last of the lights in the garden had been switched off one by one, until only the moon remained, hanging pale and enormous above the old trees.Elliot closed the door behind us and leaned against it.For a moment neither of us spoke. My shoes dangled from one hand. My hair had given up on its pins hours ago. My feet ached, my face hurt from smiling, and every muscle in my body felt like it had been wrung out and hung up to dry.And I had never been happier."Hi," he said."You keep saying that.""I keep meaning it." He pushed away from the door and crossed the hall slowly, his steps unhurried, his gaze fixed on mine. "Hi, wife."My breath caught. It was absurd. I had heard the word a dozen times that evening, from Meera, from Gerald

SusanThe rain came on the fifth day.It arrived without warning, rolling in off the sea in a long gray wall, and by midmorning the whole world beyond the windows had dissolved into water and wind. The waves heaved against the shore. The porch boards drummed. The shutters rattled in their frames, and somewhere under the eaves a loose piece of tin tapped out a ragged, patient rhythm.I loved it at once."It's a proper storm," Elliot said, standing at the window with a mug of coffee, his hair still rumpled from sleep. "I should have checked the forecast.""You really shouldn't have," I said from the couch, tucking my feet beneath a blanket. "This is perfect.""It's the end of our beach days.""It's the beginning of our inside days." I patted the cushion beside me. "Come here."He came. He sat down, and I leaned against him, and he pulled the blanket over both of us. The fire he'd lit in the old stone hearth crackled low and golden. Outside, the storm wailed and battered at the glass, an

SusanOn the last night, we didn't go anywhere.There was no dinner reservation, no long walk, no plan. Elliot lit the fire in the old stone hearth, and I opened every window in the house to let the sea air through, and together we cooked something that was neither dinner nor a disaster. We ate it on the porch with our feet propped on the rail, watching the tide draw out across the sand in long silver sheets.Ten days had gone by like a single long afternoon.I hadn't opened my laptop once. I hadn't checked a message, or a calendar, or a board report. I had slept until I woke, eaten when I was hungry, and talked until the words ran out and then kept talking in the silence. I had stopped counting hours somewhere around the third day, and I had never felt so rested in my life.And tomorrow, we were going home."You're quiet," Elliot said."I'm saying goodbye.""To the house?""To the ten days." I turned my head against the back of the chair. "I know we'll go back to our real life. I'm l

ElliotBy late spring, the third center was finished.I had watched it rise from the ground in stages, as one watches a child grow in photographs...a bare lot in winter, a skeleton of beams by February, a roof by April. I had walked the site only twice, both times at Susan's invitation, and both times I had kept my hands in my pockets and my questions to a minimum.It wasn't my project. I had learned that lesson, finally, and I had learned it well.But on the morning of the opening, standing at the edge of the crowd in a plain dark suit, I felt something swell in my chest that had nothing to do with ownership and everything to do with pride.The building was low and bright, with a wide front porch and a bank of tall windows that caught the sun. A banner hung above the door, hand-lettered by the children who would use the center in the fall. A hundred folding chairs stood in rows on the lawn, and most of them were already full...staff and volunteers, families from the district, neighbo