He Left My Bed for His Secretary, So I Took His Brother novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: What I Wanted
Constance set the table for fourteen.
Her sister came, and her sister's husband, and four cousins who had not spoken to Nolan in ten years.
They sat in the long dining room with the lake behind the windows, and nobody touched the soup.
Nolan and I sat in the front row of chairs Constance had set up against the wall, like children at a recital.
She stood at the head of the table with her cane in one hand.
"I will be brief," she said. "I am not a brief woman, but I have run out of time to be anything else."
Her sister sighed. "Constance, what is this?"
"A confession."
Nobody moved.
"Ten years ago my younger son wrote a girl a letter. I saw my older son burn the next one in his study. I stood in the doorway and watched the smoke."
The cousins looked at one another.
"I said nothing," Constance went on. "He told me he would cut Nolan out of the will. I was afraid for the money."
Her voice did not shake.
"I let my son marry a girl who had been lied to, and I sat at their wedding and smiled. For ten years I sent her a card with one line. It was the coward's way to say it."
She turned her head and looked at me.
"Leah. I am sorry, and I mean it this time, in front of people who will repeat it."
My throat was tight.
"I know," I said.
"You don't have to forgive me."
"I know that too."
She nodded once. Then she reached into her bag and set a long envelope on the table.
"This is the deed to this house. Sixty-two years of my husband's money, and mine."
Her sister gasped.
"It is not for Nolan," Constance said. "He has a cottage and a conscience. It is not for Preston, who has had everything. It is for the girl in the yellow raincoat."
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