Betrayed by My Husband, Taken by His Billionaire Uncle novel · Chapter 22 of 32

Chapter 22: The Back Room

I bolted the door behind him.

He stood in the back hall with his hands at his sides and cold coming off his sweatshirt, and didn't reach for me.

"You ran," I said.

"The alley's the long way around."

"You could have driven."

"I'd have had to stop and park." He was still breathing hard. "I didn't want to stop."

I took him into the back room.

It was small and cold, behind the cooler, with one bulb and a high window and six black lawn bags of my clothes along the wall.

The cot sat under the window with my mother's quilt on it.

I sat on one end.

He sat on the other, on the very edge, as far away as a cot allows.

"Nine feet?" I said.

"About three. It's a small cot."

I laughed, and then I didn't.

"I don't want to do anything," I said. "Not yet. I want to talk."

"Then talk."

So I did.

I told him about my mother.

How she bought the shop when I was four and painted the van herself, standing on a milk crate.

How I did my homework on the worktable and learned to strip a rose before I learned long division.

How the cancer came back the second time, and she still did weddings.

"She'd do a whole reception," I said, "and then sleep on this cot for an hour before she could drive home. I'd sit on the floor right there and do the invoices."

He looked at the floor where I pointed.

"The last week, in the hospital, she asked me if I'd have a baby someday." I pulled the quilt corner into my lap, the square from her wedding dress. "I said yes. I said it about a hundred times. So when that doctor in Ballantyne said I couldn't, I'd have carried anyone's. I'd have carried a stranger's. I just wanted to keep that promise."

August didn't say anything for a long moment.

"Chandler knew that," he said.

"I told him on our second date."

His hands closed on his knees.

Then he told me about his.

She'd run the payroll office at the mill, the last years before it closed.

← Chapter 21 · All chapters · Chapter 23 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend