Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 204

Chapter 199: Acceptance

CAMERON

He was quiet for a moment, not saying anything as he thought about it before shaking his head.

“I’ve met Lucian,” he said. “At the Preston Investments events. He’s at your side at the functions. He’s-” He considered for a moment before continuing.

“He’s steady. He’s thorough. He looks at you in a way I’ve noticed before but didn’t have a name for.”

I looked at the table.

“I have no concerns about Lucian,” my father said.

My mother made a sound that was both confirmation and relief, maybe, that a door had been opened that had apparently been closed for a while.

“We just want you to be happy,” she said. “We’ve always just wanted that. Both of you. We have noticed since your college days you were not like other guys, who brought in girlfriends and then we thought it was because you were work oriented, and then the thing with Sedona and we chose not to try and matchmake like wedid for sedona because we did not want to lose you.” She glanced toward the ceiling, which was the kitchen’s version of gesturing toward Sedona’s room. “We didn’t know what was in the way of it. For you. We wondered but we didn’t want to-”

“Push,” my father said.

“Ask,” my mother said, at the same time. Then: “Either.”

“I know,” I said.

“We should have asked you before now, rather than make you carry this for so long, afraid of being rejected.”

“Mum. It’s-I wasn’t ready. That’s not your fault.”

She looked at me across the room and nodded my head and dabbed at my eyes with the edge of her

clothes.

Then she said: “He has a son.”

“Lake. Yes.”

“Four years old.”

“Yes.”

“Cameron.” She said my name with a specific weight. Not heavy-warm. “That means we’d have two grandsons.”

I blinked. “We’re not-it’s early. We haven’t-”

13

Acceptance-

Claim

“I know it’s early. I’m not-” She made the hand gesture that meant *let me finish*. “I’m saying: if this is serious, which you’ve said it is, then we’d have Lake. And Nick, when things work out with Sedona.” She paused. “That’s two grandsons.”

My father picked up his tea. Set it down. “Nick first,” he said. “Let’s not get ahead of the custody hearing.”

“I’m not getting ahead of anything,” my mother said, without conceding the point. “I’m doing arithmetic.”

I looked at her. Then at my father. My father had a specific expression-the one that appeared when he was trying not to show that he was pleased about something. He was not entirely succeeding.

“You’re not upset,” I said.

“Did you expect us to be?” my father asked.

“I didn’t know,” I said. “I genuinely didn’t know. That’s why it took eighteen months.”

My father looked at me, fully as he held my eyes and said.

“Cameron. You are thirty-four years old. You have run a company for eleven years. You have kept this family’s finances intact through three recessions and a global disruption. You built something from-” He stopped. Pressed his mouth together briefly. “Whatever you bring into this house is welcome. Whoever you bring. Do you understand me?”

I understood him.

I didn’t trust myself to say anything immediately, so I didn’t.

My mother filled the space, which she had always been good at. “When do we meet him properly?” she said. “Not as your PA. As your-”

“We’re not using a word yet.”

“We don’t need a word.” She waved this away. “When do we have dinner?”

“Soon,” I said. “I need to-he has Lake, so scheduling is-”

“Bring Lake,” my mother said, as though this were obvious.

“Lake is four, Mum. He’s also-” I thought about how to say this. “He’s working through some things. About the situation. He needs time.”

My mother’s expression shifted. The particular shift she made when a child’s feelings had entered a conversation. “What kind of things?”

“He had a different idea about who his father was seeing,” I said. “The correct information was recent. He’s adjusting.”

My mother looked at me for a moment. “He’s a four-year-old who just had his expected story change.”

“Yes.”

“Then we give him time and we don’t make it a thing and eventually he comes for dinner and we feed him and find out what he likes.” She said this with the confidence of someone who had been feeding people through difficult adjustments for thirty-four years and had a perfect record. “That’s all.”

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Acceptance

may not be that simple.”

“It’s almost always that simple,” she said. “The feeding part, at least.”

My father, who had been quiet for a moment, said: “What does he like?”

Clam

I thought about what Lucian had told me. What I’d observed in the car, in the brief overlap at the garden party, in the things Lucian mentioned in passing. “Nature programs. Birds. Apparently tennis, recently.” I paused. “He likes Drew-Dante’s son. They’re in the same school year.”

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