Semua Bab The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back): Bab 221 - Bab 230

HANNAH'S POV.Aunt Adele did not tell me everything on the phone that night.She started to but somewhere around the third sentence her voice went unsteady in a way I had never heard from her before and she stopped herself and said, "I cannot do this properly over the phone. I need to see your face when I tell you this. I need to be in the same room as you." And even though every part of me wanted to say just keep going, please, tell me right now, I sat there in the dark hallway and I said okay. Okay Aunty. I am coming.I booked flights at midnight. Elijah was not even fully awake when I climbed back into bed but he must have registered something in the way I was moving because he rolled over and said, with his eyes still closed, "Are we going somewhere?" And I said yes and I am sorry and I will tell you everything in the morning and he said okay and reached for my hand under the duvet and held it until I fell asleep which took about forty minutes because my brain had absolutely no in

HANNAH'S POV:We ate at the kitchen table, the stew she had been making since early morning and the bread she baked herself, and talked about lighter things the way Adele always required before anything heavy could be said in her house. She believed that difficult conversations needed a proper foundation and the foundation was always a meal.She asked about the twins. Andrew's current project, which had recently moved from deep sea creatures to the human immune system. Adele asked several specific questions about this and seemed genuinely interested in the answers, which told me everything I needed to know about why Andrew had decided she was worth his real attention. She asked about Amelia's drama performance and Elijah described the part where Amelia spotted me arriving late in the wrong clothes and kept her composure completely even while obviously registering it, and Adele laughed.When the plates were cleared and the tea was poured and the afternoon light was coming through the k

HANNAH'S POV:We stayed the night."She would have loved you," Adele said, looking at me across the table. "She would have looked at what you are building and she would not have been surprised. She would have been proud. Because she always believed this was possible. She just did not know it was going to come through you.""What was she like when she was happy?" I asked.Adele smiled for the first time that evening in the way that comes from a real memory and not from managing emotion. "Loud," she said. "When she was happy she was loud. She laughed at full volume and she talked fast and she had opinions about everything and shared them whether or not anyone asked. She loved music. She danced in the kitchen. She was completely terrible at it but she did not know that and she would not have cared if she did." Adele tilted her head. "She was also very difficult to argue with because somehow she always had a reasonable point even when you disagreed completely and she was infuriating about

ELIJAH'S POV:I read everything. Twice in some places, three times in a few. I went through each document in order and when something required more context I went back and checked it against earlier pages. Mirada had photographed everything clearly and the image quality was good enough to read even the smaller handwritten notes, which I was grateful for because some of those documents were old enough that the originals probably would not survive much more handling before something important became unreadable.I am not a lawyer and I have never worked in the fashion industry. But I have spent fifteen years reading contracts and agreements in various states of complexity and I know what legal language is doing when it is trying to be clever. When it is trying to make something that is dishonest look like something that is reasonable.The original partnership agreement was clean and honest. Mirada named as founding creative partner. A proper profit share structure. Real co-ownership of t

ELIJAH'S POV:Kojo's preliminary report had come through that morning and it was impressively thorough for something produced in under forty-eight hours. Aldric Voros was seventy-three years old. He was based between London and Milan with homes in three other countries. The fashion house that bore his name was among the fifteen most valuable luxury brands in the world. He held board positions at two international fashion councils. He had personal relationships with sitting government officials across different countries. He had the type of media connections where stories about him tended to stay quiet when things went wrong and get loud only when things were going right.Kojo had also found something more specific under the section of the report he had titled Orica connections and local presence.Over the past fourteen months a man had been quietly active in Orica's fashion and investment circles. Attending events. Making introductions. Positioning himself between the worlds of fashio