The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 201

Where We Begin Again 

HANNAH’S POV: 

“Just wait and see,” he said, and he was smiling now and not even attempting to hide it. 

I looked at him for a moment. This man. Honestly. 

We drove to the east side of the city, past the areas I usually went to, and pulled up in front of a building that looked like it used to be an old storage warehouse. It was a large square structure with high ceilings you could tell even from the outside, wide loading bay doors that had been replaced with proper glass entrance doors, and long windows running along the upper half of the walls that let in serious natural light even in the afternoon. 

Two of Elijah’s staff were standing outside and they greeted him and opened the doors. 

I stepped in. 

It was big. Much bigger than I expected. The floors were smooth concrete that had been cleaned so thoroughly they were almost shining. The walls were white and completely bare. There were clothing racks already lined up along one side, empty and waiting quietly. In the centre of the space were long solid worktables, it was the type of worktables that Sandra had basically demanded. At the back there were partitioned sections that could work as fitting rooms. Off to one side a small area had been set up as an office corner with a desk and a good chair and excellent overhead lighting. 

Natural light came pouring through those high windows and it made the whole space feel open and honest somehow. Like it was not trying to be anything it was not. 

I walked slowly through the middle of it and did not say a word for a while. 

“The electrical and plumbing are all updated,” Elijah said from just behind me, his voice even, watching me carefully. “The ventilation is solid. The temperature control works properly. I had them check the lighting specifically because I know how important accurate colour matching is for you.” He paused for a second. “There is also a small kitchen area at the back because I know that you and your team have a tendency to forget that eating is something that happens during working hours.” 

I turned around and looked at him. 

He was standing near the entrance with his hands in his pockets, watching me with that careful expression of his, not nervous exactly. But paying very close attention to me. 

“You did all of this today?” I asked. 

The team was not due until nine but I needed to be there first. I needed to walk through it alone and let it settle into me before I had to stand in front of everyone and be the leader. 

I stood in the middle of that big empty space with a cup of coffee that was already going cold and I looked at the bare white walls. There was nothing on them. Not a sketch, not a colour swatch, not a single thing. Just white and space and the early morning light sliding in quietly through the high windows. 

I thought about the archive room. 

I thought about the photographs of my mother that had been in there. Her face in black and white, younger than I am now, laughing at something that was just outside the frame of the camera. I thought about my original sketches going back years, the ones from before anyone in this city knew my name, the ones I drew in a small apartment in Frerus when the twins were sleeping and the whole world was quiet and all I had was a pencil and a dream that felt both enormous and completely possible at the same time. 

All of that was gone. 

I let myself really feel that for one full minute. I did not look away from it or rush past it. I just stood there and felt it the way it needed to be felt. 

Then I put down the coffee cup, walked to the wall nearest the worktables, pulled the pencil from behind my ear where I always kept one, and I started to draw.