The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 320

The Love He Preserved 

MARY’S POV: 

He looked me up and down very slowly. The way you might look at a piece of furniture you were considering buying but weren’t sure would fit in your living room. 

“Alistair called me,” he said, and his voice was exactly what I expected-low, rough, with an edge of something that might have been amusement or might have been disdain. Hard to tell. “Woke me up in the middle of the night. Three in the morning. On a Wednesday. Do you know what I was doing at three in the morning?” 

I did not know abd I also did not care. 

“He didn’t even ask,” the man continued, pushing past me into the foyer without waiting for an invitation. “Just called and said I need you here like I was some kind of errand boy. And why? Why did he drag me out of bed and put me on a plane at an ungodly hour?” 

He turned to face me, spreading his arms wide as if presenting evidence in a courtroom. 

“For her. For his precious goddess. For the woman he has been pining over since.” He laughed a short, bitter sound. “First love really hits different, I guess. He never got over her. Not really and the second she snaps her fingers, he comes running.” 

I stood in the doorway, still holding the doorknob, still wearing my apron over my faded t-shirt and sweatpants, still trying to process what was happening. 

The man looked around the foyer with an expression of faint disgust. His eyes swept over the vase of flowers I had arranged last week. 

“Wow,” he said, letting out a low whistle. “He even prepared the house this fast? I have to hand it to him-when Alistair commits to something, he really commits.” He shook his head, almost admiringly. “First love do really hits differently. He never got over her. All these years, all that pretending, and look at this place. Ready and waiting for her.” 

He glanced at me. 

At my apron. 

At the dish towel still hanging from my pocket. 

At my bare feet and my tired eyes and my hair that I hadn’t brushed. 

“You must be the maid here,” he said, and his tone shifted from irritated to dismissive. Like I was beneath his notice. Like I was furniture-the same way Alistair had begun to look at me some months ago. “Take me to your future mistress, will you? The one who came yesterday. I’m supposed to be here for her breakup party, apparently, though I’m still not entirely clear on what that means or why it requires my presence at”—he checked his watch-“seven in the morning.” 

I didn’t move. 

I stood there in the doorway of my own home, my bare feet cold against the marble floor, my apron still dusted with flour from the cake I had made for a birthday my husband had missed. The man in the leather jacket, tall, sharp-jawed, with dark eyes that looked like they had seen too much and cared too little, was already turning away from me, already dismissing me from his attention. 

“What did you mean by ‘first love’?” I asked. 

He stopped and turned back. His eyes narrowed slightly, like he was trying to decide whether I was worth the effort of a response. 

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