Fifteen Days to Divorce novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Rule One

Malachi parked in the garage and turned off the engine.

Neither of them moved.

The dashboard clicked as it cooled.

"You left me alone to cut our wedding cake," Portia said.

She said it to the windshield.

"You walked out of the chapel with your phone at your ear. I heard you in the hall. You said, 'It's only a job. Don't wait up.'"

Malachi's hands tightened on the wheel.

"I've been angry about that for a year," she said. "I wanted to say it somewhere there was no one to hear."

He was quiet so long she thought he would not answer.

"I was on the phone with Ellie," he said.

"I know who you were on the phone with."

"Not like that."

"Then like what?"

"I can't," he said. His jaw locked and he breathed through it. "Not tonight. I'll show you. Tomorrow. P-please."

It was the first time she had heard it plainly.

She heard it, and she did not understand it, and she looked at his face and saw how much it cost him to say that single word.

"Your turn," she said, more gently.

He looked at her.

"The day you signed," he said. "Margo told me what you said in her car. 'The sooner it's over, the better.'"

Portia stared at him.

"I was parked outside a laundromat, shaking so hard I couldn't hold the pen," she said. "I was scared of the press finding out. I wanted to be on the other side of it. That's all it was."

"That's all?"

"What did you think it was?"

"That you couldn't wait to be rid of me."

Something in her chest turned over.

"I didn't know you well enough to want to be rid of you," she said. "I do now."

He looked at her mouth.

"There's no camera," Malachi said, very low. "No camera on us, Portia."

"I know."

"You said no touching."

"Rule one," she said. "Throw it back at me."

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