I Dumped My Groom and Married My Childhood Crush in 30 Minutes novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Taunt

Annalise's POV

Conway came back two hours later with his jaw set and nothing in his hands.

Hattie was on my couch with a bag of chips and her feet up, and she took one look at him and said, "I'll go sit in my car."

She took the chips with her.

He shut the door behind her and stood with his back against it.

"She wouldn't see me," he said. "Her housekeeper stood in the doorway and said Mrs. Harcourt was resting. I could see her on the stairs."

"Did she look at you?"

"She went into her room and closed the door."

I put my coffee down.

"Then we'll go back tomorrow. Together."

"Annalise."

"What?"

"There's something I want to ask you, and I want you to hear the way I mean it."

I waited.

"I read the letters," he said. "You went to the dance with him. A year later you stopped writing. And nine years after that, you said yes to his ring."

"Conway."

"You wore his ring for two years."

The air in the room changed.

"That's what you've been holding," I said.

"I held it all the way up the aisle." His voice shook. "I walked in that church thinking, she called me because she was angry. She'll call him next week."

"You think I picked Tobias."

"I think you stayed. A Harcourt. Two years. After everything that family did to us."

I stood up.

"Do you know why I stayed?" I said.

"Tell me."

"My mother died the winter after you left. Eleanor paid the funeral. She sat beside me at the grave. She paid the taxes on the cottage and never mentioned it. Tobias came to my door every day for a month with soup."

"Soup."

"He was nice to me, Conway." I laughed, and it came out badly. "He was nice to me when nobody else was. He didn't turn out to be what I thought, and it took me two years to see it."

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