The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 116

Chapter 69-3

Clam

“I’ve been called both, Willow says cheerfully. “Sometimes by the same person in a single conversation.”

“Yeah,” Mayhem says wryly.” totally believe it.”

Dad has barely spoken throughout the exchange. He’s just watching Willow. Watching thirty-four years of a daughter he never knew, just unfold one conversation at a time.

Willow catches his look, and smiles at him.

“I’ve had an interesting life with lots of travel,” Willow says. “But I’d quite like to stay in one place for a

while now.”

Dad smiles back. “I hope you do,”

A comfortable silence settles over the table, then Dad reaches for another spring roll.

“So,” he says. “How exactly do you earn a living doing what you do?”

Willow laughs. “I wondered how long it’d take before someone asked.”

“Yeah, I’m dying to know myself,” I admit. “I can’t imagine that milking goats and arguing in Chinese pays the bills.”

“Well, I studied astrology very intensely,” she says. “I use it professionally to do birth charts, compatibility readings, tarot card readings, yearly forecasts and business consultations.”

Dad’s eyebrows rise. “Business consultations?”

“Oh, yes,” she says enthusiastically. “Timing launches. Examining partnership dynamics. Choosing dates for negotiations.”

I stare at her. “Businesses pay for that?”

“They pay very well.”

“How well?”

“More than well enough to support myself and travel.”

“Just by doing horoscopes?” Mayhem says.

Her eyes narrow slightly. “Star-chart analysis is not a horoscope.”

“What’s the difference?”

“One requires years and years of study.”

“And the other?”

“The other is three sentences in the newspaper beneath the picture of a crab.”

I laugh so hard that I nearly inhale rice, and Dad pats me on the back.

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Chapter 63

“Is it really in demand?” Jade asks, clearly fascinated. “By businesses?”

Claum

Willow nods with complete sincerity. “More than people realize. Most of my clients don’t tell anyone they

use me.”

“Why not?” Dad asks.

“Because they’re worried people will laugh.” She glances at Mayhem. “Think that they’re crazy.”

He raises both hands in the international gesture for ‘I come in peace’. “I’m done.”

“For now,” I say.

“For now,” he agrees.

Willow smiles. “I don’t mind questions about it.”

“I have one,” I say. “Do you tell people what they want to hear?”

“No. Never.”

“What if the cards or the stars say something awful?” I ask.

“The cards and the stars don’t say anything.”

Mayhem smirks. “At last, common ground.”

She ignores him. “They show patterns, and possibilities. Things someone may already know, but hasn’t admitted to themselves yet.”

“And if they don’t like it?”

“That’s usually when it matters most.” Willow looks around the table. “I don’t predict death or disasters, and I don’t frighten people. I help them see choices.”

Something in the way she says it makes me believe her.

Mayhem leans back in his chair. “So you don’t tell people their future.”

“No.”

“What do you tell them?”

Willow holds his gaze. “That the future is usually built from what they’re refusing to face in the present.”

Mayhem’s smile fades, only for a second, then he picks up his beer. “Definitely weird.” But his tone is warm, even a bit affectionate, and Willow’s smile says that she knows it.

Dinner carries on. Dad asks too casually about her childhood, Jade makes sure that Willow has enough food, Mayhem pretends that he isn’t interested, while asking increasingly specific questions about rising signs. And for the first time, Willow doesn’t look like a stranger sitting at our table.

Dad reaches for the vegetable chow mein and passes it to her before she asks, and she takes it with a soft thank you. Their fingertips brush, and they both pause. Just for a heartbeat.

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Chapter 69

Clam

Then Willow looks at him and smiles. Not brightly, not politely – it’s like a daughter trying the expression on for the first time.

Dad’s face breaks open in a way that he rarely shows, and suddenly I understand that tonight isn’t about discovering whether she belongs with us.

It’s about how much it’s going to hurt us if she doesn’t.

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