Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 88

Chapter 82; An Old Flame

Sedona’s POV

Dante Wells, was someone who was six foot two and had a backhand like a thunderclap when playing and a personality that dominated any room he entered whether he liked it or not. Before Enzo, there was Dante, a man who was fully imbedded in my life and was more of a thorn that I could not get rid of, and did not want to. We had met through tennis and had grown up on a rival, after he made a remark that girls like me, were not fit out for tennis and our rivalry was bom.

Dante Wells, who had beaten me in the most important match of my junior career-Pacific Northwest Regional Championships, third set, seven-five-and had shaken my hand afterward with genuine respect and said,

“You’re going to be a problem for everyone when you’re older,” and had been right, and then had never gotten to see it, because I’d left before older arrived.

We had been, if not friends exactly, then something more than rivals. The specific relationship that existed between two people who pushed each other to better than before. We’d traveled the same circuit for three years, had warmed up together when our coaches allowed it, had sat beside each other in waiting rooms and airports and the backs of tournament vans without needing to fill the silence.

I’d left without telling him either. I’d left without telling anyone.

“Dante Wells is in this hospital,” I said.

“In the lobby,” Enzo confirmed. “Waiting.”

“How did he know I was here?”

“He said the tennis community is smaller than it looks. He heard from someone who heard from someone.” Enzo tilted his head. “He’s been on the circuit for years, Sedona. He’s top five in the world. He was in Seattle for an exhibition match and -he made a point of coming here to see you.”

A pause.

“He seemed genuine. Not curious in a bad way. Just-he wanted to know if you were all right.”

I looked at Rachel. “Did you talk to him?”

“Briefly. He recognized Enzo first-they’d played each other, apparently, a few years ago-and then he asked about you.” She watched my face carefully. “He said he’d never stopped wondering what happened to you. That you were one of the most talented juniors he’d ever played against and you just-disappeared. He said he’d looked for news of you and never found any.”

I thought about the last time I’d seen him. The handshake at the end of the regional match, the one he’d won. His face when he said it-*you’re going to be a problem for everyone*.

I’d never gotten to be the problem he’d expected.

Or maybe I’d been a problem for everyone in entirely different ways than either of us imagined.

An Old Flame

“Docs he know?” I asked. “About the-about why I’m here?”

“He knows you’re ill,” Rachel said carefully. “I didn’t tell him specifics.”

“He came anyway.”

“He came anyway.”

Claim

I looked at the ceiling for a moment, thinking about this. Dante Wells, a man who had everything, wealth, looks, and the body of a Greek God, being fawned over people in business and sports communities was waiting downstairs in the hospital lodge, uncertain if I was going to spare him a visit.

He’d seen me at my most real and he’d said I was going to be a problem for everyone. I did not need to put up the act with someone like him. He wasn’t Logan.

“Tell him yes,” I said.

Rachel blinked. “Yes?”

“Tell him he can come up.” I adjusted myself against the pillows, aware suddenly of how I looked-bald from the treatment, thin, wearing a hospital gown that had never done anything for anyone. Then I decided it didn’t matter. Dante Wells had seen me sweat through a three-set match in August heat. He’d seen me throw a racket once, at fifteen, when I’d lost a point I’d been certain was mine. He’d seen the actual me in conditions far less dignified than a hospital bed and had not flinched. This was just going to be another Tuesday for him.

“Tell him he can come up.”

Rachel stood, pulling out her phone. Enzo caught Molly, who had decided the moment was an opportunity for movement.

My mother, who had been listening at the conversation from her end without speaking, looked at me with an expression that was curious and also, I thought, quietly pleased.

“Who is he?” Cameron asked. He’d been quiet through the whole exchange, watching.

“Someone I knew from tennis,” I said. “A long time ago.” I paused.

Cameron looked at me for a moment, and something moved in his expression, that odd expression that seemed like he was hiding something from me before he resolved his expression into something neutral and nodded his head slowly.

“Good,” he said simply. “You should see him.”

He appeared in the doorway seven minutes later.

Six foot two, same as I remembered, though he carried it differently now- he looked more mature and had filled out the lanky stature he had as a teenager, turning into a well built man that went to the gym thrice a day and it showed. Probably did not even have time to sleep. I snorted a bit amused at my thought flow before clearing my throat and putting on a blank yet warm expression.

He looked at me and stopped.

23

Not with shock, exactly. He’d known was ill, Rachel had said he knew I was ill, so whatever he’d prepared himself for, he’d prepared.

That took a certain kind of intelligence. I’d forgotten he had it.

*Sedona Preston,” he said. His voice was the same, sounding confident as usual. He’d always spoken like someone who was certain they wouldn’t be interrupted. “You are genuinely the most difficult person in the world to find.”

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