All Chapters of No Longer His Convenient Wife: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The south wall got the best morning light so that’s where I started the kitchen garden, and I was on my knees in the dirt with my playlist going from my phone propped against a terracotta pot when I heard boots on the gravel path behind me. I didn’t bother turning around. I knew those footsteps since I was four years old. “You’re not supposed to be here,” I said, pressing a basil seedling into the soil. My dad set a tray of seedlings down beside mine and crouched next to me like I hadn’t spoken at all. He picked up the spare trowel and began loosening the soil around the next row. “Dad.” “Mm.” “Mum is going to say this is cheating.” “Your mother,” he said, turning soil over with two fingers, “is at the vineyard office until four and what she doesn’t know won’t give either of us a headache.” I looked at the tray he’d brought. Thyme, lemon verbena, a flat of nasturtiums I’d been trying to source all week. I moved over to give him more room. “She will find out either

He nodded, as if he understood.“But,” I took a breath, “the terms you’re offering are a little too tempting.” He smiled and extended his hand. I hesitated for a second before reaching out to shake it. His hand was warm, dry, and firm. The pressure of the handshake was steady, perfectly measured. “Pleasure working with you, Miss Miller.” *** The contract from Weston arrived the very next morning. I held the thick stack of parchment in my hands, staring at the long string of zeros on the final page. I stood frozen in my cramped, weathered office for three full minutes, just breathing. I texted Sienna first, then Kai, and after a split second of thought, added Rain and River to the thread. 6:00 PM. The Barrel Room. Same corner booth as always. When I arrived, the four of them were already huddled in our usual corner booth. They looked like they were holding their breath, four untouched waters sitting on the table between them. "Dahlia! Over here!" River waved me down, pulling o

Sienna insisted on driving, which meant we got there fifteen minutes early and spent twelve of them in the car while she touched up her lip liner and told me I needed to look like I knew what I was doing. “I do know what I’m doing,” I said. “You know what I mean.” I did know what she meant. I smoothed my jacket and got out. The restaurant was the kind of place that had no prices on the lunch menu, which told you everything you needed to know about the clientele. Eloise Bennington was already at the table when we got there and she was exactly what I expected and somehow still a lot to absorb in person. Blond, put together in a way that looked effortless but definitely wasn’t, the kind of woman who made a white blouse look like a statement. She is so beautiful. And she also looked like she had already decided several things about this meeting before we sat down. Maisie was beside her with a juice box and her legs swinging. There was a not so small gap between her chair a

Arabella had been talking for the better part of the last twenty minutes, and I’d been answering at the right intervals without actually hearing a single word she said. She was flitting through some charity gala or the next. I wasn’t sure and honestly, I didn’t care. I cut into my steak. “…and if the board thinks they can just move the venue without consulting me, they’re out of their minds. I built that event from nothing,” she said. I nodded. Mm. That was all I had to offer. Tracking her circular monologue was pointless. The moment she paused, I noted it. The rest was filler, words looping back on themselves like a broken record. The restaurant was good. That was the one useful thing about evenings like this — the food was always good because Arabella chose places that required planning, and planning required quality, and at least I was eating well while not listening. “You’ve been on your phone all evening.” I looked up. I hadn’t been on my phone. I’d been thinking a

Kai’s crew had shown up two weeks ago and I’d been grateful for all six of them every single day since. They were six of them. Their lead guy was Theo, mid-thirties, a ponytail and a tape measure he kept tucked behind his ear like it was part of his anatomy. If you asked him for an estimate, he didn’t check anything. He just stared at the ground for three seconds and gave you a number that was almost always right. Then there was Cruz, who never shut up and somehow got twice the work done while talking. He’d already told me about his ex-girlfriend, his dog, and the time he helped build a surf stage in Bali that collapsed mid-soundcheck and “no one died so technically it was a win.” Mason and Tyler were brothers. Red hard hat was Jonah. And last was Priya. The structural engineer. The only one who’d openly challenged me on day one. “If you want the arch to hold florals and drapery in coastal wind, you either reinforce here,” she’d tapped the blueprint, “or you accept that your