Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 206

Chapter 201: Getting To Know Lake

Cameron’s POV

A pause. The comfortable kind-the kind we were getting better at, the kind where neither of us needed to fill it. I looked out at the garden. The bird that had been on the wall earlier was back, or a different bird was there, and I thought that Drew would know which and would have written it in his small notebook with the careful handwriting.

“Tell Lake,” I said, “that the boardroom has a very good view.”

Lucian made a sound that was almost a laugh. “He’s going to want to go immediately.”

“I know.”

“He’s going to announce himself to every single person in the building.”

“I’m counting on it,” I said.

A real laugh, this time. Brief, quiet-the real one that didn’t perform itself. “Cameron.”

“Lucian.”

“Go do your important job,” he said. “I’ll talk to Lake tonight.”

“Tell him the view is good,” I said. “And that we have snacks.”

“What kind of snacks?”

“I’ll find out what he likes and we’ll have those.”

Silence.

“You’re going to spoil him,” Lucian said.

“I’m going to start from a deficit,” I said. “It’s going to take a while to get to spoiling.”

A pause. Then: “He likes jollof chips and those tiny sausages they have at parties.”

I made a note. “Done.”

“Cameron.”

“Yes.”

“I mean it. Thank you.” The careful warmth, fully present now. “For this morning.”

“It was overdue,” I said.

“Still.”

I looked at the bare branches of the Japanese maple. My father had planted it the year Sedona was born, which meant it was twenty-eight years old and had been in this garden for every event this family had moved through every departure and return, every crisis and celebration. It stood there in November with its particular structural honesty, all its actual shape visible, nothing hidden.

“Lucian,” I said.

“Yes.”

I thought about the right word. Not too much. Not something that outpaced where we were or where Lake was or what the next months had to hold. Just the word that was true.

I brought Drew that first Tuesday. Dante had a call with Maria about Sedona’s circuit schedule that was running long, and Drew had been at the facility all afternoon and needed somewhere to land. I picked him up at four-thirty-Drew, who shook my hand at the facility entrance and said *thank you for collecting me, Cameron* with the gravity of a small diplomat-and we drove to Lucian’s building in the early November dark.

Drew was quiet in the car in the way he was always quiet-not uncomfortable, just interior. He watched the city through the window with his cataloguing expression.

“Do you know what we’re having for dinner?” he asked, at one point.

“Jollof rice,” I said.

“Lake likes jollof rice,” he said. Then: “I also like it.”

“Good.”

A pause. Then: “Cameron.”

“Yes.”

“Lake is still upset,” he said. Not as a warning. Just as information, offered in the straightforward way he offered things. “He’s working through it. He told me at school.”

I kept my eyes on the road. “I know.”

“He’s fair,” Drew said. “When he has enough information.”

I glanced at him in the rearview mirror. He was looking out the window again, apparently done with the subject, having delivered what he felt needed delivering.

Lucian’s son was a four-year-old who had declared them brothers and told his kindergarten class about it. Dante’s son was a four-year-old who quietly took the temperature of rooms and delivered assessments with the economy of someone twice his age.

I was fond of both of them in completely different ways.