Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 83

Chapter 83

BIANCA

Rivera driving. Louis in the backseat. Me in the passenger seat, finally relaxing after a long shift.

This was what I’d never had with Matthew. This easy companionship, this genuine interest in each other’s lives, this sense of being a unit rather than separate people occupying the same space.

“So how was it really?” Rivera asked during a brief pause in Louis’s monologue. “Your first day?”

“Exhausting. Exhilarating. Everything I hoped it would be.” I smiled at him. “I treated a teenage transformation accident, extracted curse fragments from a boy who’d been suffering for weeks, handled three different magical injuries. And James Wright has decided I’m showing off, which apparently is a compliment in trauma medicine culture.”

“You were showing off?” Louis asked from the backseat. “Like when I do cartwheels to impress people?”

“Similar, yes,” I said, making Rivera laugh.

“She was being competent,” Rivera corrected. “Which in the medical field sometimes looks like showing off because most people aren’t as skilled.”

“Exactly!” Louis agreed, though I suspected he didn’t fully understand. “Mummy is the most skilled doctor in the whole hospital. I told my class that during sharing time.”

“You did not,” I said.

“I did! Mrs. Patterson said it was very nice that I was proud of my mummy, and then Tommy said his dad was a lawyer which is also important, and then we had snack time.”

The casual way he called me “mummy,” the pride in his voice, the absolute certainty that I belonged in his life–it made my chest ache with affection.

We arrived home to find that Rivera and Louis’s cooking experiment was actually quite successful–a simple pasta dish with vegetables that tasted homemade and comforting.

Over dinner, Louis asked increasingly detailed questions about my day.

“Did you use the special magic to see inside people?”

“Sort of. I used magical resonance to detect curse fragments.”

“Did anyone die?”

“Louis,” Rivera said warningly.

“It’s okay. No, sweetheart, nobody died. Everyone I treated today is going to be fine.”

“Did you wear a cape?”

“Doctors don’t wear capes.”

“But you should. Superheroes wear capes, and you’re basically a superhero.”

The logic was flawless from a five–year–old perspective.

After dinner, while Rivera handled dishes despite my protests that I could help, Louis dragged me to the living room to show me an elaborate LEGO structure he’d built.

“It’s a hospital,” he explained. “See, this is the emergency room where you fixed the boy with the curse pieces, and this is the

Chapter 83

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cafeteria where you ate lunch, and this is your office where you think about how to help people.”

“I don’t have an office yet,” I said, touched by his attention to detail.

“You will. Dad says when you’re important enough, they give you an office with a window.” Louis was very serious about this.” And you’re definitely important enough.”

Rivera appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame with that soft expression I’d come to recognize as his “watching his family” look.

“Bedtime, buddy,” he said gently. “Dr. Bianca has had a long day.”

“Can she read me a story first?”

“Louis-”

“Please? Just one story about the brave doctor who fixes people?”

Rivera looked at me questioningly, and I nodded despite my exhaustion.

“One story,” I agreed. “But then you have to go to sleep without arguing.”

“Deal!”

Twenty minutes later, Louis was asleep with his head on my lap, the medical–themed storybook Rivera had bought him lying open across his chest.

Rivera gently lifted him, carrying him to bed with practiced ease, and I followed to tuck him in properly.

“Love you, Mummy,” Louis murmured, already half–asleep. “Proud of you.”

“Love you too, sweetheart,” I whispered, kissing his forehead.

Rivera and I retreated to the living room, where he poured two glasses of wine and we settled on the couch in comfortable

silence.

“Thank you for picking me up,” I said after a moment. “You didn’t have to, but it meant a lot.”

“I wanted to.” Rivera’s arm came around my shoulders, pulling me close. “This is what we do now. Take care of each other. Support each other. Be a family.”

I leaned into him, feeling the tension of the day finally drain away.

“I overheard something at the hospital today,” I said, not sure why I was bringing it up. “Doctors talking about a council member’s son who’s been cursed. Five years old, blood curse, multiple specialists unable to break it.”

Rivera went very still beside me. “And?”

“And it reminded me of Louis. Of how easily that could have been him if I hadn’t figured out his curse.” I turned to look at him. Rivera, what are you going to do about the man that cursed your son? Really?”

For a long moment, he didn’t answer. Then he sighed, his hand tightening on my shoulder.

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