Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 76

Chapter 71: Taking Nick Home

Logan’s POV

Nick’s room smelled like lavender.

I noticed it the moment I carried him in from the car, still half-asleep and compliant in the way children. were when exhaustion overrode their independence, not protesting or putting up a fuss which made my job easier tonight because we were both raw and exhausted.

I laid him down, pulled the covers up, and stood there in the dim light of his nightlight while the smell registered to me as i realized it, i hadn’t taken notice before, due to stress but now i could smell it-faint, clean, botanical. Not from anything in the room now, like a new scent that Mrs Peterson had dropped to make it better but from years of it.

From whatever Sedona had done in this room, while looking after Nick, making sure his clothes were of the right kind and his allergies were something that was controlled until the scent itself, the scent that i had come to associate with Sedona’s presence had embedded itself into his sheets, his curtains, the air itself.

She wasn’t here and the smell of what she’d made was still everywhere.

I sat down in the chair by his bed-the armchair that had been moved in there at some point, which I realized now must have been Sedona’s doing, because where else did you sit during the long nights of childhood illness, during the vigils that a child’s fragile health sometimes required-and I watched him sleep.

His breathing was easier. The IV antihistamines had done what they were supposed to do, had broken the worst of the reaction, and by the time we’d left the hospital the hives were already beginning to fade from his neck and face, retreating back to his arms and torso where they’d started. The doctor had given me a prescription, written instructions down that i should follow to the dot to avoid something like this happening again, and had also gone ahead to add in a follow-up appointment. Standard protocols for a child with a documented history of severe allergic reactions.

Except the history had been documented in Sedona’s head, not anywhere I could access.

The discharge nurse had asked me about his triggers, about his regular medications, about whether he was currently on any antihistamine regimen as a preventative measure.

I’d told her I’d have to check with his pediatrician for the full history, which was the polite way of saying I didn’t know anything about my own son and i know how it looks but it was a mistake i was working hard to correct.

She’d been professionally neutral about it. She’d seen parents who didn’t know things about their children before and her job was more focused on saving those children from the maistakes of the parents while secretly judging the parents.

She’d added notes to his chart and sent us home with instructions I understood logically but had no idea what i was supposed to do with them.

I sat in the chair and looked at my son and tried to remember what I actually knew about Nick’s medical needs.

The asthma inhaler. knew about that. Blue inhaler, always in his bag, always in the car, spare in the kitchen drawer. Sedona had drilled that one into me so thoroughly that even I’d retained it.

The nut allergy. Tree nuts, not peanuts-an important distinction that Sedona had explained several times and that I’d filed away correctly, though had no idea where mild it could be for nick downwards to the dangerous ones.

She’d said nothing to me because she’d learned by then that saying things to me produced either dismissal or a conversation about whether she was being reasonable.

I pressed my face into my hands.

Mrs. Peterson had gone to bed by the time I came downstairs. The house was quiet and dark except for the kitchen light I’d left on, throwing a yellow rectangle across the floor of the hallway. I stood in it for a moment, not sure what I’d come downstairs for, and then opened the pantry.

The ingredients were still there.

She’d taken the cream she’d already made, the finished products, but the ingredients she used to make it, was still around.

I picked up the lavender oil and opened it.

The smell was immediate and familiar. This was the exact smell from Nick’s room, from the cream that had worked when nothing else did, from three years of Sedona applying it to my son’s skin and watching the reaction subside.

I put it down carefully and closed the pantry.