Chapter 42 WELCOME HOME HUBBY
NOVA'S POV
The front door opened and I turned around.
Vanessa walked in dragging a full sized Louis Vuitton luggage behind her. Matching carry on beside it. Handbag sitting on her forearm like she had been born with it there.
She stopped when she saw me standing in the entrance hall.
I stopped too and we both llooked at each other.
"Is Callum home?" she asked.
So rude, not even a greeting from her."He left for the office." I replied her.
Her eyes moved past me toward the staircase like she was checking for herself.
Riley came out from the kitchen and her eyes went straight to the luggage.
"Miss Sterling." Riley kept her voice even. "Mr. Blackthorn didn't mention any guests."
"He knows I'm coming." Vanessa held out the luggage towards Riley without looking at her. "Show me to a room."
No please. Just the bag extended in Riley's direction like Riley was there specifically to receive it.
Riley took it.
She looked at me briefly and I gave her a small nod because there was nothing else to do and Vanessa was already moving toward the staircase like the conversation was over.
The wheels of her suitcase were loud on the marble all the way up.
I stood in the entrance hall until the sound of it was gone. Then I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of orange juice and stood at the counter.
I folded it reservation reciept and put it in my pocket.
Then I picked up my phone and looked at Matthias's name sitting there in my contacts.
I put the phone face down on the counter.
I finished my juice, rinsed the glass then put it on the drying rack.
Riley came back into the kitchen and started moving around the kitchen. I guess she wanted to make lunch.
"She didn't even say please," I said to the counter.
"No," Riley agreed, not looking up from what she was doing. "She rarely does."
I almost laughed.
Riley pulled a chair out at the counter and sat down across from me and folded her hands on the surface, dropping whatever she was about doing. "Are you eating lunch? You barely touched anything this morning."
"I ate."
"The half a croissant that man brought does not count as eating."
"Riley."
"I'm just saying." She stood back up and opened a cabinet. "I'll make you something proper. Sit there."
I sat there.
She moved around the kitchen pulling things out and I watched her did her thing.
Somewhere above us Vanessa was unpacking or doing whatever Vanessa did when she arrived somewhere and decided it was hers.
I thought about the receipt in my pocket.
I thought about Matthias's thumb stopping on the back of my hand this morning when I mentioned work. That one second where the warmth paused before it started again.
I thought about Elias saying he doesn't deserve you in that dress.
Sokn enough Riley put a plate in front of me. Eggs and toast with sliced tomato and a small cup of tea beside it.
"Eat," she said simply.
I picked up a fork.
We were sitting there, me eating and Riley with her own cup of tea, when we heard the footsteps coming from the direction of Richard's wing.
He came into the kitchen looking thinner than he had the last time I saw him. His shirt was pressed and his hair was neat but something about the way he was holding himself told me it was costing him more than it looked.
He pulled out a chair and sat down across from me without being invited and without asking if he was interrupting anything.
Riley got up and poured him a glass of water without being asked and set it in front of him and went back to her tea while muttering. “Good morning sir.”
He looked at my plate. "You're eating."
"Riley made me something."
"Riley has more sense than most people in this house." He picked up the water glass. "I saw what they wrote about you this morning."
I kept my eyes on my plate. "Most people did."
"Are you alright?"
The question landed differently from him than it did from anyone else. Not because I trusted him more. Because I trusted him less and he was asking anyway.
"I'm managing," I said.
He looked at me for a moment. "Your mother used to say that. Right up until she wasn't managing at all and by then it was too late to help her." He set the glass down. "She hated people talking about her. She would go very quiet when it happened. Just like you're doing."
I looked up at him.
He was not trying to say something clever. He just looked tired and old and like a man who had been carrying things for a long time and was running out of places to put them.
"Vanessa is here," he said.
"I know. I was in the entrance hall when she arrived with her luggage."
"She's coming with me." He shifted in his chair. "The hospital wants me back for a few days of observation. I asked Vanessa to stay with me. I did not want to go back there alone."
"Callum and Elias—"
"Have enough to manage." He cut me off, not unkindly. "They do not need to sit in a hospital corridor watching me sleep." He pushed himself to his feet slowly, one hand on the counter for balance. "
He picked up his cane and went back down the corridor.
Riley watched him go then she topped up my tea without saying anything.
I sat there and kept eating.
\---
Vanessa came downstairs with her carry on repacked and her coat on her arm. She walked into the sitting room and dropped onto the sofa and pulled out her phone then she started scrolling without acknowledging me sitting in the armchair across from her.
I was watching television.
Neither of us said anything.
The television was doing all the talking for a while.
Some property show where people walked around houses saying things like I just don't feel the flow of the space and Vanessa made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff at one of them without looking up from her phone.
I looked at her but she did not look at me.
"He planned it," she said, still looking at her phone. "The stage thing last night. It was not something he decided in the moment." She turned her screen over and put it face down on her knee. "I just thought you should know."
I looked at her. "Why are you telling me that?"
She picked her phone back up then I waited for her to respond but she didn't answer.
I scoffed and looked back at the television.
We stayed like that until Richard appeared in the sitting room doorway with his coat on and his travelling bag in his free hand.
"Vanessa." He looked at her. "The car is outside."
Vanessa stood up immediately, smoothing her dress down, picking up her handbag from the cushion beside her. She did not look at me or say anything to me.
She just followed Richard out of the sitting room, her heels clicking on the floor, and then the front door opened and closed.
Riley came back in and looked at the entrance door. "Well," she said, and left it there.
I almost smiled.
We stayed like that, just me and Riley and the property show, until the gravel outside shifted under tyres.
Riley went to the window and looked out. "They're home."
I heard the front door open. Heard Elias say something to Riley who had gone to meet them and Callum's heavier footsteps coming through behind him.
Then another set of heels on the marble.
Vanessa's voice came through from outside.
It was obvious she didn't leave with Mr blackthorn again because she said something that made me surprised.
"Welcome home, hubby.”