Five Hours a Year novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: What the Store Cost
I got up so fast the chair went over.
"Six years," I said.
"Leah."
"Six years I stood in kitchens apologizing for you. I told my mother it was your way of being careful. I told myself every invoice was a small insult I could afford." My voice climbed, and I let it. "I pressed Approve on a dinner I'd cooked."
"I know."
"You let me think you were charging me for my own husband."
"I let you think it because the alternative was telling you the truth," Alec said. He hadn't stood. "And the truth was worse for me."
"Worse than what?"
"That I couldn't give you my time for free. Not once. I tried." He rubbed his face with both hands. "In the second year, I decided I'd skip a Friday meeting and come home early. I stood at the elevator for ten minutes. I could see my father at the counter, handing out the afternoon, and I got back in my office and shut the door."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
I stood in the middle of the room with my arms crossed over my sweatshirt.
"You could have told me about the store. You told me over one dinner. You could have told me in six years."
"I could have. I was ashamed." He looked up. "You gave up your cases for me, Leah. You left Mercer Basinger because my firm was across the table from yours. I wanted you to have something that was only yours. If I couldn't give you the hours, I could give you what the hours were worth, and nobody on earth could take it from you."
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