The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 199

Thirty Days Is Enough 

HANNAH’S POV. 

I did not sleep the night before I told my team. 

I laid there in the dark with Elijah’s arm draped over me, his breathing deep and even and very peaceful, and I just stared at the ceiling like it had answers written somewhere on it. The ceiling had absolutely nothing. It was just a ceiling. But my brain was everywhere at once, jumping from one thought to the next like it had somewhere urgent to be and kept refusing to settle down no matter how many times I told it to. 

By the time the sun started to creep through the curtains I had made my decision. But if I was being fully honest with myself, I had already made it the day before when I told Paige she was going to have her dress. Those words had come out of my mouth before I even finished thinking them and once they were out they were out. There was no taking them back. Not that I wanted to. 

I just needed to now tell my team. 

Which was going to be, I realized as I sat up and looked at Elijah’s sleeping face, the interesting part. 

I called the meeting for nine in the morning. 

We were using the conference room at Elijah’s office building temporarily since we did not have a proper space yet and I stood at the front of the room watching everyone file in and take their seats. There were twelve of them, what was left of my core team after everything that had happened. My two remaining seamstresses, Lily and Priya. My pattern cutter, Theo, who always looked like he had not slept in three days regardless of whether he had. My fabric sourcing lead, Sandra, who was already frowning before I even opened my mouth, which was honestly just her resting face and something I had long since learned not to take personally. My junior designers, Kate and Moses, who always sat right next to each other and had a habit of finishing each other’s sentences in a way that was either adorable or slightly unsettling depending entirely on what mood I was in. And then there were the others, assistants, interns, production coordinators, all of them sitting there and looking at me with very different expressions on their faces. 

Some looked hopeful. Some looked tired in the bones. Some looked like they were quietly calculating how long it would take to update their resumes. 

I cleared my throat. 

“Thank you all for coming,” I said, and then I just said it, no big speech or long emotional build up. Just the thing itself. “We are releasing the Mirada collection in thirty days.” 

The silence that followed was the type that has an actual texture to it. You could almost touch it. 

Then Theo said, very slowly, “Thirty days.” 

“Not recreating,” I said. “But rebuilding.” 

“What is the difference?” Sandra asked, and there was no rudeness in her voice, just genuine curiosity. That was one thing about Sandra. She was always direct but she was never nasty about it. 

I thought about it for a second because she deserved a real answer and not just words. “Recreating means trying to copy exactly what was lost. Rebuilding means we take everything we remember, everything we know, everything we feel, and we make something that is better than what burned.” I paused. “The collection was always about my mother’s story. That story did not burn. It cannot burn. It lives in me and I will put it into every single piece we make.” 

The room was quiet again but it felt different from before. 

Lily, who had been sitting very still with her hands folded neatly on the table, said softly, “I am in.” 

Priya nodded right beside her. “Me too.”