Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 64

Chapter 59: Forty Three Percent Chance

Sedona’s POV

She fed me carefully, like I was a child, and I let her because it seemed important to her that she did so, so she could feel better about doing something that relieved a great deal of pain for me and also because I genuinely didn’t have the strength to hold the spoon steady. The soup was warm and perfect-exactly what my abused stomach could handle.

Between spoonfuls, I studied my mother’s face. She looked tired, worn in a way I didn’t remember from before I left Seattle. There were new lines around her eyes, gray threading through her hair that hadn’t been there five years ago.

I’d done that. My disappearance, my silence, five years of not knowing if I was alive or dead-I’d aged my mother in ways that time alone wouldn’t have done to her. For my mum, money wasn’t a problem but missing her daughter and having no idea where she was and then finding her and watching her battle a terminal illness in the space of one week was enough to age her considerably.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “For everything. For running away, for staying away, for all of it.”

“We’ve been over this-” she started, looking worried but I shook my head, cutting in

“I know, I know you don’t care about that because I am back and safe. But I need to say it again. I need you to know that I understand what I put you through. What I put Dad through, and Cameron.” I had to pause, emotion making my throat tight. “I wasted so much time. Five years we could have had together, and I wasted it being too proud and too stubborn to just call and say I was okay.”

Jennifer set the soup bowl aside and took both my hands in hers. “Do you know what I thought about every day you were gone?”

“How angry you were at me?”

“No. I thought about all the times I pushed you too hard. All the expectations I loaded onto you that you never asked for but you felt obliged to carry out because you were trying to do your duty as a filal daughter.

“The arranged marriage that I convinced myself was in your best interest and I was looking out for you, making sure you were settled with the best in life when really it was about business connections and family prestige.” Her grip tightened on mine as she continued.

“I thought about how I’d failed you as a mother. How I’d made you feel like you had to run away to be yourself. And I promised myself that if I ever got the chance to see you again, I’d tell you that I was sorry. That I’d been wrong. That you deserved better than what we gave you.”

“Mom-” I started as she held on tighter as I stopped speaking.

“So yes, you wasted time, that is something we can agree on and put it in the past. But so did I. So did your father as well. We all made mistakes, Sedona. The only thing we can do now is not make them again.” She leaned forward, her eyes intense with love and affection as she added.

He pointed to dark masses that I recognized as tumors, scattered through my abdominal cavity like invasive black dotted species.

“And this is from this morning.”

The second scan looked… different. The masses were still there, but smaller. Very smaller.

“The tumor markers in your blood work have dropped by forty-three percent,” Frank continued. “That’s a significant response, Sedona. More than I’d dared hope for after just one treatment cycle.”

“Forty-three percent,” I repeated, trying to make the number feel real, like something that was actually tangible.

“Yes. Now, I want to manage expectations-this is one data point, and we need several more before we can talk about remission. You’ll need at least three more treatment cycles, possibly more depending on how your body continues to respond. And there’s always the possibility that the cancer could develop resistance to the treatment.” He paused as he regained his breath, placing his hands together on his laps as he continued in a much lower tone, like this was the important part that he had been building up to all this while.

“But right now, at this moment, your body is responding exactly how we hoped it would. You’re fighting this. And you’re winning.”