The CEO's Rejected Wife And Secret Heir novel Chapter 191

Chapter 191: Chapter 191: Five years Later Epilogue

Aria’s POV

The photographer arrived at ten, which meant the household had been in productive chaos since eight-thirty.

Noah, now nine years old and possessed of opinions about everything, had vetoed three outfit combinations before arriving at the navy suit he’d chosen himself — which I suspected had been his plan all along. He was sitting at the kitchen island eating toast with the focused calm of a person who had done his preparation and was now conserving energy, occasionally offering unsolicited commentary on everyone else’s progress.

"Emma, your bow is crooked," he said.

Emma, who was now Nig and had opinions of her own and was not interested in receiving feedback about them, turned from where she was standing on the footstool at the hallway mirror and fixed her brother with a look that bore, the same quality of Damien’s boardroom stare at its most withering.

"I know," she said, with tremendous dignity, and adjusted it herself.

Noah considered this. "It’s still a little"

"Noah," I said, without looking up from where I was straightening my own collar, "eat your toast."

He ate his toast as Damien appeared from the bedroom in the dark suit, no tie because I had said no tie and he had learned, over years, that I was right about these things.

His hair was slightly less perfect than his boardroom standard because Emma had been involved in the morning, and Emma’s involvement in anything tended to leave a mark.

Emma immediately crossed the hallway and held up her arms. "Daddy. Up."

He lifted her without hesitation, settling her against his hip and Emma put both hands on his face and studied him with her dark serious eyes — my eyes, still, even now, though the set of her expression was entirely Blackwood.

"You look nice," Emma announced.

"You look beautiful," he said.

"I know," she said, and I pressed my lips together against a smile.

Noah finished his toast, set down his plate and slid off the stool. "Is the photographer going to want us to do the smiling thing?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

He sighed tiredly."Okay," he said. "I’ve been practicing."

*******

The studio was downtown — a neutral backdrop with good light. The photographer was a calm professional named Renata who had been recommended by Olivia and was already visibly charmed by Noah’s technical questions about the equipment before we’d even started.

Lucas and Olivia arrived at eleven with the twins in matching outfits that Olivia had clearly spent considerable time on and that the twins — who were four and had their father’s golden retriever energy. Matteo had grass stains on his left knee and Felix had managed to lose one sock.

"We had them ready at ten-fifteen," Lucas said, with the tone of a man lodging a formal complaint.

"They’re four," Olivia said. "This is what four looks like." But she was already straightening Felix’s sock with one hand and refolding Matteo’s collar with the other, moving through it with the practiced competence of a woman who had learned that the chaos was also the joy.

We did dinner every week, all of us. Monroe Global and Blackwood Enterprises had formally merged years ago and dominated the market with a coherence that our competitors found baffling and that Damien and I found, privately, deeply satisfying. Co-CEOs, equal partners, the same terms I had insisted on from the beginning and had never once regretted it.

I watched Lucas hand Felix back to Olivia and exchange some remarks with Damien that made both of them laugh, and thought about the first time I’d seen Lucas in Ravenwood.

He had been the right person to help Olivia find her way toward happiness, and Olivia had been, in every version of events, exactly what Lucas needed.

"Aria." Olivia appeared at my elbow, Felix on her hip. "You’re doing that thing where you get contemplative at social events."

"I’m allowed," I said.

"You are," she agreed, pressing a kiss to my cheek. "How’s the hospital wing?"

"Opening in a few months," I said. I had walked the Catherine Whitmore Ward last week, stood in the corridor outside the pediatric recovery rooms, and felt something I still didn’t have a precise word for. "Dr. Reeves is leading the dedication." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"Eleanor called me," Olivia said.

I looked at her.

"She wanted to know if she could be there for the opening, she didn’t want to ask you directly. She’s been good this year, Aria. With the kids. She shows up when she says she will."

"I know," I said.

Eleanor had shown up. She was not the grandmother I might have imagined in an easier life — she was a woman learning late what she should have known early.

The twins ran past, shrieking about something as Noah tracked their movement.

"She can come to the opening," I said. "She can sit in the row with everyone else."

Olivia’s face settled into warmth. "Good."

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify