His Love Came Too Late, I'm Already Another's Wife novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The One Who Showed Up

I sat on the bottom step until my hands stopped shaking, and he did not move from the step above me.

"Six years," I said.

"Yes."

"I stood next to Preston at five anniversary dinners and thanked him while you were across town."

"I know."

"Don't you say you know."

Eli shut his mouth.

I turned around on the step and looked up at him. The light from the upstairs window was behind him, and I couldn't see his eyes.

"I'm not going to forgive you tonight," I said. "Maybe not this month."

"All right."

"You watched me do it. You watched me give that man my whole life, and you let me."

"I did."

"Why?"

His voice came out low.

"Because you loved him. You had loved him for six years because of what you thought he did. If I told you, you'd either hate me for lying or go back to him and be wrong in a new way."

"You thought I'd go back."

"I thought you'd have every reason to."

I stared at him.

He really believed it. He had believed it since the courthouse, and he had married me anyway.

"Eli Corrigan," I said. "Listen carefully, because I'm only saying this once."

"I'm listening."

"Preston stood in a doorway and begged me to come back, and I told him no in front of a clerk. Nobody had to explain anything to me to do that."

"You didn't know."

"I didn't need to know." I got up, so that I was on his level. "I stood in that corridor with the whole town looking at me, and I picked the one who showed up."

His breath went out of him.

"It wasn't Preston, Eli. It was never going to be Preston again. It was the man at the service door with the water."

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