Chapter 9: The Cheapest Way to Stand Beside Her

Nate's POV

The first time I offered Jo Hazlitt the job, I wrote the contract myself on a Sunday.

I rewrote it three times because the salary kept looking like an apology.

She said no in a four-page email that fixed my freight ledger and thanked me for the opportunity.

I printed the email.

I'm not a sentimental man, but I'm a thorough one, and I wanted the corrections.

The second time was a year later, and I improved the offer and added a title.

She said no again, more gently, because she had a little girl at home who was not hers.

I put the nameplate in a drawer.

Then I took it out again and left it on the desk.

That was two years ago.

At two in the morning on Saturday, I sat in my kitchen with the pool open on my laptop.

A glass of water stood beside it, forgotten.

I had read the chat from the beginning.

All of it, back to the first message, from the day Blaine Lowry gave the girl he lived with a ring.

I'd seen the bets, the jokes and the polls.

I'd seen a line from Cynthia Pemberton: "She'll stay. Women like her always stay. They've got nowhere else to be."

I read that one three times.

Then I closed the laptop and put my hands flat on the counter.

There was a thing I hadn't told Jo.

She thought I had bet against her going back because I'd spotted a market.

I had bet because I'd read the chat at six on Monday morning, before she was due in.

I couldn't stand to see every name on one side.

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