All Chapters of The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back): Chapter 241 - Chapter 250

326 Chapters

Standing Together

ELIJAH'S POV:She was wearing one of my old shirts over her pajamas the way she sometimes did in the morning when she was not fully awake yet and her hair was still from sleeping and she had the particular look she always had in the first few minutes of being conscious, like the world was on probation and had to prove itself before she committed to engaging with it.She looked at me."You have been up for a while," she said."A few hours.""What happened?"I showed her the article.* * * * * * *Hannah read it standing at the kitchen island and she was quiet the whole way through.When she finished she put the phone down and looked at me."Kelloway," she said."Yes.""Is everything in this article factually accurate?""The facts are accurate," I said. "The framing is selective. There are things left out that change the picture. But the core facts of the deal are accurate."She nodded slowly. "And the deal itself. Was it legal?""Yes. Ethical by the standards I hold myself to now? No.

The Joint Statement

ELIJAH'S POV:"People," she said, in the tone of someone who had no intention of being more specific than that. "People who have known this family for a very long time and who understand that a story appearing in the press is not the same as a story being true and who have platforms of their own from which they can say so.""You are not doing anything that could come back and complicate things," I said carefully."I am doing nothing improper," she said, with such tremendous dignity that I believed her immediately. "I am simply having conversations with old friends about what they think of a particular piece of journalism and whether they consider the sourcing credible. Which is a thing people do all the time." Another pause. "I am also personally offended on behalf of this family and I am choosing to express that through my existing social relationships. Is that allowed?"I thought about it. "Yes," I said. "That is allowed.""Good," she said. "I will be at the house this evening. I am

Like A Family

ELIJAH'S POV: She was completely composed. She looked like a woman who had chosen where she was standing and intended to stand there and nobody was going to have any thoughts about that. After the statement there were two questions from journalists. I answered both of them steadily and briefly and then we thanked everyone and went back inside. In the elevator up to my office I exhaled for what felt like the first time since six forty-three that morning. "You did not have to do that," I said. "I know," she said. "Stop saying that. I did it because I wanted to. Because you are my husband and because whoever put that story out there wanted you to feel alone and isolated and I am not interested in giving them that." I looked at her. "Also," she added, "I want Voros to know that going after you was not the distraction he thought it would be. Coming after your family does not separate us. It just makes us harder to move." The elevator opened and we walked out. And somewhere in the

The Right Stew

ELIJAH'S POV:I had not deserved her in the beginning. But I was working on it.That was going to have to be enough for today.My mother arrived at six thirty with food.Three containers of it. Rice, a stew that smelled like it had been cooking for most of the day, and something sweet in a smaller container that she would not name and which the twins immediately identified and were immediately told to wait for until after dinner.She set everything on the kitchen counter, surveyed the room, looked at Hannah and then at me with the particular look that meant she had been monitoring the situation all day from a distance and had formed a full assessment, and said, "You both look tired. Sit down. I will serve.""Mum, you do not have to serve, we can handle it," I said."I know I do not have to," she said serenely, already opening the containers. "That is what makes it nice. Sit down."She set the containers down and looked around the kitchen the way she always did when she arrived somewhe

The Hug

HANNAH'S POV:She was just there.I walked into the warehouse at seven twenty-two on a Wednesday morning with my coffee in one hand and the notebook of mother-memories tucked under my arm because I had been awake since five thinking about the closing piece and I wanted to get some thoughts down before the day picked up and took over. The security guard gave me his usual nod. I pushed through the glass door into the main space.And there was Maya.Standing in the middle of the warehouse floor with her coat still on, like she had just arrived and had not yet decided where to settle herself. She was thinner than the last time I saw her. I noticed that first because it was hard not to. Her face had that particular hollowed quality of someone who had been running on not enough of everything for too long. Not sick exactly. Just worn through. But her eyes were clear and she was standing straight and whatever she had been through had not taken the posture from her.We looked at each other acr

The Message

HANNAH'S POV:We sat on the warehouse floor with our backs against the worktables because neither of us made any move toward the chairs and I think we both understood without discussing it that the floor was the right place for this conversation. There is something about sitting on the floor with someone that takes the formality out of things in a way that sitting across a table does not.I had given Maya my coffee and gone to make myself another one from the kitchen area because she needed it more than I did and she had taken it without even the usual polite protest which told me she genuinely needed it. The morning light was coming through the high windows and the warehouse was still and quiet because the team was not due for another ninety minutes."It started about three months before the fire," she said, curling both hands around the cup. "Small things at first, some information appearing in places it had no business being. A supplier we had contacted confidentially somehow knew

The Loading Bay

HANNAH'S POV:She shook her head very slightly, though she was not disagreeing exactly. More like trying to settle something that still had not fully settled. "I had been tracking it for weeks," she said. "My little notes. I had dates, I had what was said in specific meetings, I had approximate windows for when the leaks had to have happened. I was actually getting somewhere with it. I could feel the shape of it." She looked at her coffee cup. "And then that message arrived on a Sunday evening when I was sitting in my flat and I had been planning to come to you on the Monday morning with everything I had found and instead I sat there for about four hours reading the message over and over and then I packed a bag.""A Sunday evening," I said."Yes.""Timing," I said quietly, mostly to myself. Whoever sent it had known she was close to bringing something forward. They had moved first on purpose.Maya looked at me. "You are thinking the timing was deliberate.""Yes," I said. "Someone knew

Thirteen Days Left

HANNAH'S POV:Dara. I knew Dara. She had been in the room at the team meeting on day one of the rebuild and she had not said much one way or the other and I had not thought anything of it because not everyone was vocal and the ones who were not vocal were often the ones working the hardest. I had not looked at her twice."How certain are you?" I asked."I cannot prove it independently," Maya said. "But she is the only person who had my personal number and also had access to the HR system with staff financial details, even limited access. And she moved through the office in a way I used to think was just how she was. Now I think she was listening on purpose and positioning herself."* * * * * * *I waited until the team arrived.I did not reach for Dara immediately. I let the morning begin properly. I said good morning to everyone the way I always did. I checked in with Lily about three pieces that were close to fitting-ready. I had a short conversation with Sandra about the Portugal f

She Came Back

HANNAH'S POV: I went back to the office corner where I had left Maya and found her with a fresh cup of tea and Kate sitting beside her talking at a warm and very Kate pace about something that seemed to involve both a film she had seen recently and a strong opinion about the correct way to store fabric bolts, which was a remarkably specific combination of topics but that was Kate. Maya looked up when she saw me coming back and her eyes asked the question. I gave a small nod. She exhaled. "Kate," I said, sitting down. "Thank you for keeping her company." "Of course," Kate said, getting up with the absolute ease of someone who can read a room. She looked at Maya. "The offer of a third cup stands," she said. "I will leave it open-ended." "Thank you," Maya said, and she sounded like she meant it. Kate went back to her table and Maya looked at me. "Is it done?" she asked. "It is done," I said. "The biscuit really did help," she said, after a beat, looking at the small plate Kate

The Morning of the Show

HANNAH'S POV.I woke up at four forty-seven in the morning on the day of the show.Not because my alarm went off. It did not go off until six. I woke up because my body had apparently decided that sleeping past four forty-seven on this particular morning was not something it was going to allow and that was the end of the conversation. I lay there in the dark for a moment listening to Elijah breathe beside me, slow and even and completely peaceful, and I thought, as I had been thinking every single morning for the past thirty days, about everything that had to happen today.Then I got up very quietly, went to the bathroom, splashed water on my face, and went downstairs.I made tea instead of coffee because my stomach was already doing things that coffee was not going to improve and I sat at the kitchen island in the dark house and I did something I had been doing every morning since the fire. I opened the notebook of mother-memories and I wrote in it. Not anything planned or structured

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