His Test Cost Him a Wife, Not a Negotiation novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Later

Winslow's POV

I had never heard my own name said that way in a room.

Rosalind said it again, across the floor, with two hundred people watching.

"Ask him, Dorinda. Ask him what he did in the library."

I did not look at Dorinda.

I looked at my mother, and my mother looked back at me, and she did not look surprised.

That was the moment I understood.

I walked out through the side door and up the back stairs to the library, and I shut myself in.

I had written my first school paper at that desk.

I stood with my hands on the leather and shook.

The door opened behind me, and I knew the step.

"Mother," I said.

"You'll want to sit down."

"You knew."

She came in slowly and lowered herself into the chair opposite.

Her cane clicked once against the floor, and she folded her hands on the knob.

"I knew," she said. "Not at first. When you set up her school email on your laptop, I asked you why, and you said it was to protect her from spam. I thought it was prudent."

"I did it so she'd never have to think about it."

"Yes. So she would never have to think about it." Her voice stayed level. "I saw the forwarding rule on your screen a year later, when you left your laptop open in my sitting room. I read the first message. It was a rejection, in her name."

"You read it."

"I read it, and I closed it."

I laughed. It was an ugly sound.

"Why?"

"Because I wanted you to marry a girl who would stay," my mother said. "I was not interested in whether she was happy. I'm sorry, Winslow. I am not sorry I'm telling you now."

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