Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 100

Chapter 91: Keeping That Door Closed

Sedona’s POV

Claim

“I have too much here now,” I said. “That’s the thing he doesn’t understand, and that I didn’t understand when I left-I was leaving because I had nothing left to hold onto there. Nothing to stay for, no one who’d notice the difference. But I came home and-“Nooked at the door, as if I could see through it to the rest of the hospital, to the city beyond. “I have Mom and Dad. I have you. I have Rachel. I have people who actually see me, who knew me before I made myself small, who are giving me reasons to remember who I was.” I paused. “I only stayed with Logan for so long because I was afraid that if I left, I’d have no one. That the only people who’d want me were the ones I’d already burned bridges with. That coming home wasn’t an option because I’d made it not an option.”

“It was always an option,” Cameron said, his voice rough.

“I know that now.” I met his eyes. “That’s why I can say no to Logan and mean it. Because I’m not saying no out of pride or anger or out from a petty reason to make him suffer just because I can. I’m saying no because I have something better than what he was offering me and I don’t need to settle for being someone’s system or invisible character who stays only in the background when I have people who actually-” The word caught slightly. “When I have this.”

Cameron looked at me for a long moment. Something in his face settled-the preoccupied weight that had been sitting there for days lifting, or at least shifting to something lighter.

“Good,” he said. It came out uneven, slightly rougher than he intended, and he cleared his throat. “That’s- good, Sedona.”

“You were really worried,” I said.

“I’m your brother. Worrying is my primary function.”

“You need to get better at hiding it.”

“I need to do a lot of things.” He leaned back in his chair, the familiar posture of Cameron when the acute part of something had passed and he was returning to himself, the more jovial part of himself that existed

۴ when he had dealt with dealing with problems that he had been troubled about.

“Speaking of which.”

I recognized the shift in his tone. The slight upward inflection that meant he was pivoting to something lighter, something he’d been saving. “Don’t,” I said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to say something about Dante.”

He arranged his face into an expression of elaborate innocence that I’d been seeing on him since we were children and that had never once successfully convinced me of anything. “Why would I say anything about Dante?”

“Cameron.”

13

Keeping The Boer Closed

Claim

“I’m just noting.” he said, “that the eating has improved significantly since a certain visitor started arriving every morning with homemade food.”

“He’s a good cook. That’s not-”

“And that you laughed three times yesterday. I counted.”

“People laugh. That’s a normal human-

“Real laughs,” he said. “The kind you used to do Not the polite kind.” He tilted his head. “I haven’t heard the real ones in a long time.”

I felt the flush starting in my face, the same unwelcome warmth that had been happening whenever Dante came up in conversation since Rachel had said what she’d said, and I directed my attention firmly at the ceiling. “He’s a friend. He’s being kind. He’s in Seattle for the week and he has free afternoons and he-”

K

“He asked me this morning,” Cameron said, conversationally, “whether there were any foods you’d specifically mentioned not being able to eat right now so that he would make sure to avoid it, so as to not put you in a position where you would force yourself to eat it. Very practical question. Purely logistical.”

“That’s-he’s planning what to bring. That’s just-”

“He also asked how you were sleeping. And whether the fourth cycle was likely to be as hard as the third and if there was anything that you required from him personally that can help you get through it, because he hates to see you in pain.” Cameron’s voice remained entirely conversational, which was somehow worse than if he’d been teasing. “Standard questions from a casual acquaintance being kind.”

“Cameron.” I looked at him. “Stop.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re doing the thing where you don’t say the thing so that I have to say the thing.”

He smiled, which was infuriating because it was the smile of someone who’d been caught doing exactly

that and wasn’t sorry about it. “Is there a thing to say?”

“No.”

“Your face disagrees.”

す

I pressed my hands against my cheeks in a completely undignified attempt to address the flush evidence, which Cameron watched with unconcealed amusement.

“I am a woman in a hospital bed in the middle of cancer treatment,” I said. “I have enough to deal with. Whatever is or is not happening with Dante Wells is not something I have the capacity to address right now and I would appreciate it if you would leave it alone.”

“Completely fair,” Cameron said. “Entirely reasonable position.” He said with the absolute seriousness of someone taking this seriously.

“Thank you.”

“Very mature.” He said with a thumbs up, which was over exaggerating at this point.

7

3

Keeping The eher Closed Cameron.

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