I Sold the Cursed Duke One Hundred Nights, and He Never Counted Them novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: He Comes After Her
Odalys did not open the gate.
She stood on her own front step, in the doorway, with the candle behind her and her arms folded.
He stood on the other side of the iron in the rain.
The distance stretched between them.
Water ran off his hair and down his face and dripped off his jaw.
"You're wet," she said.
"Yes."
"Where's your coat?"
"I left in a hurry." His voice was hoarse. "I didn't think of it until I was on the bridge."
"You walked here."
"It took an hour and ten minutes. I asked the way four times." A short, strange breath. "I have not asked the way to anything in my life."
"What do you want?"
"I came to say it plain."
"Then say it."
He stood there with his hands open at his sides.
"I did not tell you the curse was broken, because I wanted you in my bed," said Caelan. "I did not tell you because I was afraid. I have been afraid of you since the Harvest Ball. I've been afraid of you at every dawn for eight weeks, and I made it a rule so I wouldn't have to say so. I would do anything not to reach the hundredth. I fell in love with you on the first night. At the ball you told me I danced like a man marching to the gallows, and you were right."
The rain came down.
She felt it blow cold across her face.
"I love you," he said. "That is not a clause. I'm not here to take you back or to ask you to forgive me, and I'm not here to pay. I came to tell you the truth once, in the open, before I lose everything I own. That is all."
She looked at him for a long time.
Then she went down the steps in her stockings, through the wet yard, and opened the gate.
"In," she said.
He came in.
She led him down the hall to the kitchen, and she made him sit at the deal table.
She took the blanket off the back of the chair and threw it at his head.
"Dry your hair."
He did.
She took a sheet of paper from the drawer and a pen, and sat across from him, and dipped it.
"My terms."
"Odalys."
"I wrote the first contract. I'm writing this one. You may sign it or go." She wrote in a clear hard hand. "One. The house is mine. I keep it, with the money I earned, and not a crown of yours goes into the walls."
"Agreed."
"Two. I keep my own tally. Of everything. You may not count anything of mine, not a night, not a coin, not a word."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of I Sold the Cursed Duke One Hundred Nights, and He Never Counted Them are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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