He Held Her Son the Night I Lost Ours novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Bill

Willa's POV

Clark stood up out of the puddle he'd made and waited.

It was the first time in six years I had seen him wait for me to speak.

"I'm going to tell you three things," I said. "They aren't a deal. They're a bill."

"All right."

"You wrote a message on your phone that night and never sent it. You posted a photograph of yourself in a paper crown. Tomorrow you post the truth, on the same page, in your own name."

His throat moved.

"What truth?"

"That you took the call. That you were told I'd lost the baby. That you went back to the cake, and then sat in the garage for an hour and watched me walk out alone."

"Everyone I know will read it."

"Yes."

"Willa, my mother's friends. My staff. The men I work with."

"Yes," I said again. "That's why it's on the list."

He swallowed.

"The second thing. You sign a letter revoking that paper Tara is waving. You send it to her lawyer, and to mine, with your own signature."

"And the third?"

"You never say the word miscarriage about me to anyone again. Not to a receptionist. Not to a priest. You don't get to use it."

He nodded.

He had tears on his face, or maybe it was only the rain.

"And if I do all three," he said. "Can I..."

"No."

Rafe, at my shoulder, did not move at all.

"Not because of her," I said. "Not because of Tara or Rafe or the board. Because I don't want to."

"You used to."

"I did. For years. Then you hung a stranger's drawing on my fridge before you asked me where I'd been."

I could hear the boiler through the wall.

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