Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 64

Chapter 59: Forty Three Percent Chance

Sedona’s POV

Clam

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.

1.3

Fasty Three Peest Chance

Which means if you survive this-when you survive this-we’re going to be better. All of us. No more pushing, no more expectations, about what you are supposed to do, no more trying to control your life. Just… family. Real family, the kind that supports instead of suffocates.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“Now finish your soup,” she said, picking up the bowl again. “You need your strength.”

Dr. Mitchell came by that afternoon, bringing charts and scans and the happy energy of a doctor who had good news and was looking forward to delivering it.

“Sedona.” He pulled up a chair beside my bed while my mother hovered nearby, protective and alert as she waited to hear the reports of the chart. I had wanted her to stay outside incase it was bad news so I would figure out a gentler way to break the news but she refused to leave and I needed someone with me, even though I wouldn’t say that out loud.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I was run over by a truck, but alive.”

“That’s about what I’d expect. It’s normal to feel that way. For now your body would not actually belong to you. The treatment was hard on your system.” He pulled up images on his tablet-before and after scans that meant nothing to me but clearly meant something to him. “I want to show you what we’re seeing. This first scan is from the day you collapsed in the garden, before we started the experimental protocol.”

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.”

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