Semua Bab The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back): Bab 231 - Bab 240

HANNAH'S POV.I was quiet for a long time after Elijah told me. I sat on the couch with my sketchbook closed on the table beside me and I looked at a point on the opposite wall and I did not say anything for a while.I thought about all the times I had seen Rowan including the event where he had appeared again and I had thought oh, him again, the way you think it about someone who keeps showing up in the same places as you. The dinner invitations, each one delivered with just the right amount of easy confidence and just the right amount of not making it awkward when I said no. The fact that he had never once pushed past what was acceptable. He had been, in every visible way, a perfectly pleasant man who was interested in me and respected my boundaries.He had been so good at it.And then something shifted in me and I laughed. It came out sharp and surprised and a little bit disbelieving and Elijah looked at me with a very careful expression when it happened."My instincts were right,"

HANNAH'S POV:I had in fact come in four minutes late to that recital and had genuinely believed I had been invisible in the back row and was now learning that I had been completely visible and that Amelia had clocked me from the stage with the observation skills of a child who had been watching adults her whole life and knew exactly what they were doing."I will be there on time," I told her. "Front row if I can manage it.""You do not have to be front row," she said graciously. "Third row is also acceptable. But not the back. The back is where people sit when they think they might have to leave early and I need to know you are not thinking about leaving early."I looked at my seven-year-old daughter explaining the theatre seating politics of her drama club performance with the calm authority of a senior producer and I thought, she is absolutely going to be extraordinary at whatever she decides to do with her life."Third row," I promised. "And I am staying for the whole thing."She

HANNAH'S POV:Lucas appeared beside me so quickly that he must have been watching the door the whole time.He sat down in the chair Rowan had just vacated and looked at my face. "How bad?" he said."Not bad," I said. "He did not say anything we can take to court. But he said enough.""The legacy comment.""Kojo's people got it?""Everything," Lucas said. "Crystal clear."I nodded slowly. "He knows about my mother's history. Not in the general way that anyone reading the press materials knows. In the specific way that someone who has been briefed knows. He used the word legacy and he meant something particular by it and his face knew he meant it even when his mouth was being careful."Lucas leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling for a second. "Not enough on its own," he said."No. But it is confirmation. It tells us the briefing happened. It tells us he was given information about what the collection actually represented beyond the public story. And that information had to

ELIJAH'S POV:The story went live on a Tuesday morning at six forty-three.I know the exact time because I was already awake when it happened. I had not slept well. Not for a few nights actually, which was something I had been keeping to myself because Hannah had enough on her plate and she did not need to be monitoring my sleep schedule on top of everything else. I had been lying in the dark beside her at two and three in the morning with my eyes open, running things in my head, thinking about Kojo's report and Aldric Voros and the lawyer we had started speaking to and whether we were moving fast enough or too fast or in the right direction. At some point around five I had given up on sleeping entirely and had come downstairs and made coffee and sat at the kitchen island in the quiet of the house.My phone was on the counter face down because I had been trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to have at least thirty minutes in the morning that were not about any of this. I turned it over at s

ELIJAH'S POV:He answered on the third ring with the voice of a man who had been awake for a while but was not going to mention it. "I saw it," he said, without any other greeting. "I was waiting for you to call."I sat down on the kitchen floor with my back against the island. That is not a thing I typically do. I am not a floor-sitting person as a general rule. But in that moment the floor felt like the right place to be. Closer to solid ground. "I went to the cabinet," I said."I know," he said. "That is why you called.""I put it down." I didn't have to hide anything, he basically knows everything about the past me. He is my very best friend."I know that too," he said. "Or you would not be calling. You would be doing the other thing."I leaned my head back against the island. "It has been a long time since I felt that.""Yeah," he said. "Hard days bring old feelings. That is not new information, Elijah. It does not mean anything except that it was a hard morning." A pause. "You