The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 223

Aldric Voros 

HANNAH’S POV: 

We ate at the kitchen table, the stew she had been making since early morning and the bread she baked herself, and talked about lighter things the way Adele always required before anything heavy could be said in her house. She believed that difficult conversations needed a proper foundation and the foundation was always a meal. She asked about the twins. Andrew’s current project, which had recently moved from deep sea creatures to the human immune system. Adele asked several specific questions about this and seemed genuinely interested in the answers, which told me everything I needed to know about why Andrew had decided she was worth his real attention. She asked about Amelia’s drama performance and Elijah described the part where Amelia spotted me arriving late in the wrong clothes and kept her composure completely even while obviously registering it, and Adele laughed. 

When the plates were cleared and the tea was poured and the afternoon light was coming through the kitchen windows at the angle that made ordinary things look like they were in a painting, Adele got up and washed the plates by hand even though she had a perfectly capable dishwasher sitting right there. 

Elijah cleared the table without being asked and carried things to her and she had him dry them with a cloth from the drawer. 

When everything was away and we were back at the table with fresh cups in front of us, Adele folded her hands and looked at me. 

“I am going to tell you everything from the beginning,” she said. “And I need you to let me finish before you ask me anything. Because some of it is going to be hard to hear and if I have to stop I do not think I will be able to start again.” 

“Aldric Voros was thirty-five. He was already established, a businessman with money and connections and a very particular kind of charm that I think your mother mistook for genuine belief in her ability. He came to her. He said he had seen her work and he wanted to build something with her. A fashion house. He had the money and the business structure and the contacts. She had the vision and the talent and the designs. He proposed a partnership and she signed an agreement that I know now, though I did not know then, was not a fair document. She was twenty-two and she trusted him and she wanted so badly for someone to believe in her work enough to put real weight behind it.” 

I was very still.