Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 193

Chapter 188: Celebratory Dinner

Sedona POV

I stood there for a moment with my water bottle and my still-shaking hands, my ears still ringing from the words that Maria just said ans a huge part of me unable to believe it.

Then Dante hugged me.

It was the kind of hug that didn’t announce itself before he did it, neother was i expecting it-he just stepped in and put his arms around me and I felt myself exhale something I’d been holding for eleven years as I held on tight to him, feeling better as I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

The laugh came up from somewhere deep and surprised me with how much it sounded like relief, like a door finally being swung open after being forgotten in a house that had been abandoned.

“I knew you could do it,” he said, into the top of my head.

I pulled back enough to look at him. My eyes were wet. I was not going to cry, I decided, and then I cried anyway, because my body was all for betraying me at every single moment.

“If you hadn’t trusted in me,” I said, “I might not have even tried.”

“That’s not true.” He sounded certain like how he always did when talking about a true fact that nobody can change his mind on. “Your talent got you in. All I did was open the door.”

“Don’t minimize the door.” I said as he laughed. I wiped my face with the hem of my shirt like a person with no dignity and zero regrets, and for a moment we just stood there on the court while the facility hummed quietly around us and the world felt good.

I don’t know what I expected when I got home. I think I imagined a quiet house. My parents maybe on the porch, my mother with tea, my father with his newspaper. A gentle evening where I could sit quietly with the news with me before I would finally get the courage to tell them that I had been scouted and would be joining the regional champions.

I heard the voices from the driveway.

I opened the front door and they descended-or rather, a loud cheer immediately they saw me yelling Surprise! then I saw the banner.

Cameron had made it himself, I was certain, because it was slightly crooked and the letters had been done in what appeared to be two different markers and it said “YOU DID IT in uneven capitals across the entire living room doorway.

Beneath it: my mother, my father, Cameron, Lucian, Lake, Drew, Rachel, Enzo, and Molly-who was in Rachel’s arms and waving a fist in the direction of the commotion with the solemn authority of someone who didn’t entirely understand what was happening but had decided to participate fully.

“I’m going to come to every single match,” she announced loudly as everyone turned to us with smiles on our faces as they chucked. “Every one. I’m going to make a sign.”

“Please don’t,” I said, and hugged her.

“I’m going to make several signs. They’re going to be very large. Enzo is going to carry them.”

Enzo, behind her, lifted a hand in resigned confirmation. “I’ve accepted my role.”

We ate. My mother had made jollof rice and fried plantains and a cold pasta salad that nobody asked for but everyone ate, and there was a cake in the center of the table with white icing and blue letters that said *YOU DID IT* in the same slightly uneven style as the banner, which meant Cameron had made that too, and when I pointed this out he said he had a vision.

The cake tasted extraordinary. Lake ate two pieces and attempted a third before Lucian intervened. Drew ate one piece with surgical precision.

The afternoon went like that-food and laughter and Molly being passed between arms and Rachel saying increasingly elaborate things about the signs she was going to make-and my mother said at one point that she was a little worried, just a little, about the rigors of the circuit schedule on a body still in recovery, and I looked at her and said: “Mum. I’m ready.”

She looked at me. Held it for a moment. Then she nodded, and that was that.