Semua Bab The Billionaire’s Abandoned Wife : Bab 61 - Bab 70

“You don’t have to do this again.” Ethan said it quietly, watching Bianca stand in front of the mirror that morning, smoothing down a blazer she’d chosen specifically because it looked like armor rather than an outfit. “Priya could submit your previous statement. You’ve already said everything that needed saying.” “I know I don’t have to.” Bianca turned to face him, something steady settling into her voice despite the familiar tightness in her chest. “But I want to. This isn’t the same hearing as before. This is the one that actually closes the door completely. I want to be there when it does.” Ethan studied her for a long moment, something proud and worried tangled together in his expression. “Then I’m coming with you. Not because you need protecting. Because I want to watch this end too.” They arrived at the courthouse an hour later, the same building where so much of the past year had unfolded, though it felt different now, less like a battlefield and more like a place where thi

“I can’t find my other shoe.” Zoe’s voice carried through the whole house, equal parts panic and ten-year-old drama, and Bianca found her sitting in the middle of her bedroom floor surrounded by half her closet, one small white shoe clutched in her hand like evidence. “We have three more days,” Bianca said gently, crouching down beside her. “We’ll find it.” “But what if we don’t? What if I have to walk down the aisle in one shoe and everyone laughs?” “Then you’ll be the most memorable flower girl in wedding history,” Bianca said, fighting a smile. “But I promise we’ll find it first.” They found the missing shoe twenty minutes later, wedged beneath the bed alongside three stuffed animals and a half-eaten granola bar, and Zoe’s entire mood shifted instantly back to giddy excitement, disaster narrowly averted in the specific dramatic register only children brought to minor inconveniences. Ethan appeared in the doorway partway through the search, watching with obvious amusement. “Eve

“I keep expecting my phone to ring with something terrible.” Bianca said it quietly, lying tangled in white hotel sheets the morning after the wedding, sunlight spilling soft across the room, Ethan beside her tracing slow circles against her bare shoulder. “Nothing terrible is coming,” Ethan said, something amused and tender in his voice. “I checked. I specifically instructed everyone we know not to contact us unless someone is actively dying.” “That’s oddly specific.” “I’ve learned to be specific with this family,” Ethan said, laughing softly. “General instructions apparently invite creative interpretation.” Bianca laughed, the sound settling warm and unfamiliar in her chest, an entire morning stretching ahead of them with genuinely nothing urgent attached to it. They’d flown out the morning after the reception, a small coastal town neither of them had visited before, deliberately chosen because nobody they knew had any reason to call them there. “I don’t know what to do with an

“They want me to run the whole regional office.” Ethan said it over breakfast, phone still in his hand, something startled crossing his face as he reread the email a second time. Bianca looked up from buttering Zoe’s toast, immediately alert. “Run what, exactly?” “A national children’s health coalition. They’ve been watching the Harlow Foundation’s turnaround this past year, the transparency reforms, the governance restructuring after everything with Ingrid.” Ethan set his phone down slowly. “They want to know if I’d consider stepping into a director role overseeing coordination between a dozen regional foundations like ours. More reach, more funding, more actual impact.” “That’s incredible,” Bianca said, delight moving through her immediately. “Ethan, that’s genuinely incredible.” “It would mean travel,” Ethan said carefully, watching her reaction. “A lot of it, at least at first. Setting up new partnerships, meeting with other foundation directors, restructuring how funds move b

“Please don’t let Mum bring up the wedding budget within the first ten minutes.” Kemi muttered it under her breath as they walked toward the restaurant, Tunde beside her looking marginally more nervous than Bianca had ever seen him, which given his usual unshakeable calm, said something significant about the evening ahead. “I make no promises,” Bianca said, laughing. “You know how she gets when she’s excited.” “I know exactly how she gets,” Kemi said. “That’s precisely my concern.” They found the private dining room already occupied when they arrived, Tunde’s parents rising immediately with warm, welcoming energy that put Bianca at ease within seconds. His mother, a sharp-eyed woman named Folasade, embraced Kemi immediately, something genuine and unguarded in the gesture. “Finally,” Folasade said. “Tunde has talked about nothing else for months. I was beginning to think we’d never actually meet the woman responsible for his constant smiling.” “He does that a lot now,” Tunde’s fat