The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 234

The Briefing 

HANNAH’S POV: 

I had in fact come in four minutes late to that recital and had genuinely believed I had been invisible in the back row and was frow learning that I had been completely visible and that Amelia had clocked me from the stage with the observation skills of a child who had been watching adults her whole life and knew exactly what they were doing. 

“I will be there on time,” I told her. “Front row if I can manage it.” 

“You do not have to be front row,” she said graciously. “Third row is also acceptable. But not the back. The back is where people sit when they think they might have to leave early and I need to know you are not thinking about leaving early.” 

I looked at my seven-year-old daughter explaining the theatre seating politics of her drama club performance with the calm authority of a senior producer and I thought, she is absolutely going to be extraordinary at whatever she decides to do with her life. 

“Third row,” I promised. “And I am staying for the whole thing.” 

She nodded, satisfied, and went back to rehearsing. 

Thursday came. 

The meeting with Rowan was at two in the afternoon. The performance was at seven. I had five hours in between to get back across the city, change out of whatever I was wearing to meet Rowan, and get to the school. 

The day before Thursday I had to have a brief but important conversation with Elijah about what “I will have Kojo arrange the technical side” meant in practice. 

“It means you will not be in that bar,” I said. 

He looked at me. “Kojo’s people will be in the bar.” 

“And you will be where?” 

A pause that told me everything. “Nearby,” he said. 

Lucas came with me as far as the hotel lobby because we had decided that me arriving entirely alone might look slightly unnatural given the context and also because Lucas had strong feelings about my going anywhere near Rowan Ashby without him being at least in the general vicinity. He sat in the lobby with a coffee and his phone and looked like a man who was doing an ordinary amount of working from a hotel lobby, which was a thing people did all the time in this city. Kojo’s technical people had handled the rest. 

I walked into the bar at exactly two o’clock. 

Rowan was already there. He was sitting at a corner table and he stood when he saw me, and he smiled that particular smile of his that I now understood differently than I had when I first saw it. 

“Hannah,” he said. “You look incredibly beautiful, I am serious. How are you?” 

“I am good,” I said, sitting down and setting my bag on the chair beside me. “Better than I expected to be, honestly. It has been a hard few weeks.” 

“The fire,” he said, shaking his head with what looked like genuine sympathy. “I saw the news. I am so sorry. That collection looked extraordinary from everything I had seen.” 

Everything you had seen. I noted that and kept my face completely easy. “Thank you,” I said. “We are rebuilding. It is going better than anyone expected.”