The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 241

Standing Together 

ELIJAH’S POV: 

She was wearing one of my old shirts over her pajamas the way she sometimes did in the morning when she was not fully awake yet and her hair was still from sleeping and she had the particular look she always had in the first few minutes of being conscious, like the world was on probation and had to prove itself before she committed to engaging with it. 

She looked at me. 

“You have been up for a while,” she said. 

“A few hours.” 

“What happened?” 

I showed her the article. 

Hannah read it standing at the kitchen island and she was quiet the whole way through. 

When she finished she put the phone down and looked at me. 

“Kelloway,” she said. 

“Yes.” 

“Is everything in this article factually accurate?” 

“The facts are accurate,” I said. “The framing is selective. There are things left out that change the picture. But the core facts of the deal are accurate.” 

She nodded slowly. “And the deal itself. Was it legal?” 

“Yes. Ethical by the standards I hold myself to now? No. I am not going to pretend otherwise.” 

“Okay,” she said. Just that okay. Not you should have told me earlier or how bad is this or what does this mean for us. Just okay, processing, moving forward. 

“Hannah,” I started. 

“This is Voros,” she said. “Obviously. We started pulling his thread and this is him pulling back. He found something from your past that he could use and he used it.” She looked at me directly. “Which means we are getting closer. Because if we were not getting close enough to worry him, he would not bother.” 

“I have seen the article,” she said, in a voice that was the specific temperature of a woman who has been very still and very quiet about something for as long as she could manage and had now decided she was done being still and quiet. 

“Mum,” I said. 

“Do not Mama me, Elijah, I have been Mama-ed enough this week.” A pause. “Are you all right?” 

“I am fine.” 

“Is Hannah all right?” 

“She is managing it better than I am, honestly.” 

My mother made a sound that somehow conveyed both that this did not surprise her at all and that she was deeply proud of her daughter-in-law, using only a single syllable. She was very gifted at that. 

“I want to know if there is anything I can do,” she said. “And by that I do not mean something general. I mean specifically. I have been on the phone since seven this morning with three people whose opinion matters in this city and two of them owe me favours I have not collected yet. Say the word.” 

I stopped walking and stood still in the hallway. “Who are you talking to, Mum?”