He Stole My Fiancée, So I Took His Wife and His Company novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Return the Ring

We talked in the back hallway of the steakhouse, between the kitchen door and a rack of wine crates.

Clients were drifting out past the end of the corridor, slowly, because they all wanted to see.

Natalie stood with her back against the wall and her suitcase between her feet.

She had washed her face, and she looked younger and smaller without the lipstick.

"I gave the police everything," she said. "A year of his texts. The Pfister bills. The wire he made me send for the condo."

"I heard," I said.

"I want it written down that I helped."

"For what?" Hazel said.

"So I don't go to jail with him."

"You moved sixty-two thousand dollars out of Miles's joint account."

"He told me to!"

"You could have said no."

Natalie's mouth shook.

"I know I could have," she said. "I didn't want to."

It was the first honest sentence I had heard from her in a year.

I did not feel anything when she said it, and that surprised me.

I had expected a wound, and there was only a kind of tired quiet where it had been.

"I have nowhere to go," Natalie said. "The Pfister kicked me out at noon. Connor canceled the Third Ward deposit. My mother lives in Phoenix, and I haven't talked to her since June."

"That's a hard day," I said.

Her face lit up with hope.

"I'm not giving you a bed," I said.

The hope went out.

"Miles."

"You sat in my car and smiled at me," I said. "An hour after we signed for a license. You told me he kissed better, and you laughed."

"I was cruel."

"You were having fun."

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