He Gave His Female Best Friend My 5th Anniversary Trip, Then Bet I Wouldn't Leave novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Monday Lobby

On Monday morning I came out of the elevator at five to nine, and Derek was already standing in the lobby.

He held yellow lilies wrapped in brown paper.

He had shaved, put on his blue shirt and trimmed the stubble the Cabo sun had given him.

He had dressed for an apology.

"Leah," he said, and he said it loudly.

A crowd was waiting for the elevators behind me.

The woman at the security desk looked up from her screen.

"Not here, Derek," I said.

"Baby, please." He stepped in front of me. "I flew all night. I just want five minutes."

"You can talk to my lawyer."

A coworker from the claims floor slowed beside us with her coffee, and he turned his body slightly to give her a better view.

"I'm sorry, everyone," he said. "My wife and I are going through something hard. She isn't herself."

I felt my face go still.

"Derek."

"She's been under a lot of strain," he went on, quietly enough that everyone had to lean in. "Two years of treatments that haven't worked. It's been so hard on her body. She's made some decisions this week that I don't think she'd make if she were well."

A woman near the elevators put a hand over her mouth.

Somebody else looked at the floor.

I looked at the man I had been married to for five years, and he looked back with patient, wet eyes.

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