Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 218

Chapter 213: On The News

SEDONA

Maria had told me it would go live at nine.

I was in the kitchen at eight fifty-three, which was not a coincidence. My mother was at the stove doing the morning thing-the particular industry of a woman who processed the world through feeding it-and my father was at the table with his newspaper, and I was sitting with my phone face-up on the counter and a cup of tea I was not drinking.

Eight fifty-nine.

My mother glanced at me. Said nothing. Went back to the stove.

Nine o’clock.

I picked up the phone.

The circuit’s official page had refreshed. The competitor list for the Chicago bracket sat at the top of the feed-a clean graphic, names and photographs arranged in the format I’d seen on other announcements, the professional design of something that had been prepared and was now simply released into the world.

I found my name in approximately four seconds.

*Sedona Preston.*

The photograph was the one Maria had approved-taken at Dante’s facility during one of the earlier sessions, me mid-follow-through on a forehand, the form clean, the expression focused in the way that happened when your body was doing something it remembered and your face forgot to perform anything. I looked like someone who belonged on a court. I had not been certain, looking at the proofs, that this was true. Looking at it now in the official graphic, next to the other names, inside the real architecture of the thing-

It was true.

Beside my name: *Former WTA junior champion. Returning after eleven-year absence.

Eleven years, in six words, made to sound like a fact rather than a life.

“It’s up,” I said.

My father put down his newspaper.

My mother came around the counter and looked at my phone over my shoulder. A silence-the good kind, the kind that was full rather than empty.

“There you are,” my mother said quietly.

There I was.

1/3

On The Newar

The commentary started within twenty minutes.

Clam

† was not on social media in any meaningful way-Maria had advised me to create accounts but not to

post anything yet, to let the announcement land and the conversation happen around me rather than from me. So I watched it from the outside, which was its own particular experience.

Former circuit players were talking first. Women I had competed against at fifteen and sixteen, some of whom were still in the sport in coaching or commentary roles, most of whom I hadn’t spoken to in eleven years. The tone was-more than I’d expected. Warmth I hadn’t anticipated. A woman named Joelle Ferreira, who had beaten me in a semifinal when we were both sixteen and gone on to reach the top twenty before retiring, posted something that said: *always wondered what happened to Sedona Preston. one of the most naturally gifted juniors I shared a court with. glad she’s back.* It had several hundred responses within the hour.

The skeptics were there too. The ones who noted the eleven-year gap and the question mark of a serious illness and the logistics of returning to competitive play in your late twenties after a decade away. They were not wrong to note these things. I read their comments and filed them in the same mental category as Preet’s serve in the fourth set-information about what I was up against, not verdicts.

Then there were the ones asking why she disappeared.

These I didn’t read for long.

Maria called at nine fifty-eight.

“The response is bigger than I modeled,” she said, without preamble. Maria did not do preamble. “The junior champion angle is landing. People remember you. I have interview requests from three sports outlets and one general interest publication already.”

“No,” I said.

‘I expected that. I’m logging them.” A pause. “There will be more. The story is compelling-eleven-year absence, serious illness, return to competition. Journalists like a return narrative.”

“I know,” I said. “And I’m not doing interviews right now. Not before the hearing.”

“Understood.” She didn’t push. This was one of the things about Maria-she registered objections once and then worked within the answer. “The Chicago bracket has also gotten more attention because of this. Several people have noted that Catherine Voss’s invitational and your bracket are both in Chicago in the

same window.”

I absorbed this.

“The circuit is not the tabloids,” Maria said. “No one is manufacturing a rivalry. But the proximity is being noted.” A pause. “It may be noted more if either of you acknowledges the other publicly.”

“We won’t,” I said.

“Good.” A beat. “You’re playing well, Sedona. Let the court do the talking.” She said it the way she said most things-flat, factual, meaning it. “I’ll be in touch.”

Cameron’s text came at eleven forty-seven.

2/3

On The Newe

Claim

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