Semua Bab The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back): Bab 211 - Bab 220

ELIJAH’S POV:The envelope arrived the next morning.It was delivered to the house, which was the first thing that was wrong. Not to my office. Not to Martinez Holdings. To the house, which meant whoever sent it knew where we lived. There was no return address. No stamp. Which meant it had been hand delivered and placed directly into the mailbox at the gate, which meant someone had stood at the entrance to my home.The housekeeper brought it to me with the morning post. I noticed it immediately because it was plain and white and had only my name handwritten on the front, just Elijah, no surname, no title, and the handwriting was neat and deliberate in a way that felt considered.I took it to my office before I opened it.I sat behind my desk and looked at it for a moment before I slid it open. Through the wall I could hear the twins at the breakfast table. Amelia was singing something under her breath that I was ninety percent sure she had made up herself because the words were comple

HANNAH'S POV.The warehouse had a smell now.Not bad. Not the type of smell that makes you wrinkle your nose and go looking for the source. It was the smell of work. Fabric sizing and chalk dust and the faint sweetness of the steamer Priya ran every morning on the toiles and underneath all of that, coffee. Always coffee. At any given hour of the day there was at least one person in the kitchen corner making coffee and if you asked them if they wanted some they would say yes before you even finished the question because everyone in that warehouse was running on somewhere between four and six hours of sleep and pure collective stubbornness.Including me.I want to be honest about what those first ten days looked like because I think sometimes people tell the story of a comeback and they make it sound like passion alone carries you through. Like the motivation is so strong that it overrides everything and you float through it on some kind of beautiful creative high. That is not entirely

HANNAH’S POV:"It does not sound strange at all," I said.She looked at me then and her eyes were bright and she laughed a little to break the heaviness of it. "I cried in the car on the way here. My friend had to talk me out of turning back. I felt ridiculous.""You are not ridiculous," I said."The collection is named after your mother," she said. "Who you never really got to know. And I never really got to have mine for long enough. And I think that is why it meant so much to me when I heard about what you were doing." She looked back at the sketch. "I think our mothers would have liked each other."I had not expected that. It sat in my chest in a warm and a little bit painful way all at once."You will have your dress," I said. And I meant it with everything I had. "I promise you, Paige. You will have it for your wedding day."She pressed her lips together and nodded and her friend, the one who had offered the helpful clarification about the almond things, quietly produced a small

HANNAH’S POV:Elijah came to the warehouse that Thursday evening.He came most evenings actually, sometimes to bring food, sometimes to sit in the office corner and work while I worked so that we were at least in the same building even when neither of us had much to say. I liked that about him. He did not need conversation to make his presence mean something. He could just be there and that was enough.That Thursday evening though he was different from the moment he walked in. I noticed it the way you notice things about someone you share a life with, the small shift in how he was holding himself, the way he looked at me a second longer than usual before he spoke. He had something on his mind that he had been carrying for a while and had decided tonight was the night he was going to put it down.I sent the last two people home at eight and we were alone in the warehouse.He was sitting at the office desk and I came over and leaned against the edge of it and looked at him and said, "Wh

HANNAH'S POV:On the way home I watched the city through the car window and thought about Frerus. About the seven years I had spent there. About the apartment I had brought the twins home to, the one with the bathroom door that stuck in wet weather and the kitchen window that had a view of someone else's garden that I had never been able to find out who owned. About the first time I walked into a fabric store there with maybe forty dollars in my pocket and left with two meters of beautiful dark blue cotton that I could not actually afford and carried home like it was treasure because in my mind it was. About the women I had known there. The people who had been kind. The few who had not been.Somebody from that life had followed me here.That thought sat in the car with us all the way home and I held it carefully the way you hold something heavy when you are not sure what to do with it yet.Not tonight though. Tonight I was going to go home and check on my children and sleep next to my