I Was Never Their First Choice novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Choosing It Again

I picked up the key.

It was heavier than it looked, cold iron on a worn leather cord.

Kjell did not turn around.

I walked out of the study, down the corridor, past the kitchen door, and hung it back on its hook in front of the cook, who was peeling turnips and pretended not to see.

Then I came back and shut the study door behind me.

"I chose it again," I said.

His shoulders moved.

"You asked me to, the first night. You said you wanted me to choose it again, for the right reasons." I crossed the room. "I'm choosing it again."

He stood and turned.

His face was drawn, and I saw it had been a long hour for him.

"I watched you with the boy in grey," he said. "In the yard, in the kitchen. I did not hear what was said. I only saw that you let him close."

"I let him say it once."

"He is a boy you loved for years."

"He's a boy I used to love, in the past tense, in a kitchen, while you were upstairs not listening." I stopped an arm's length from him. "I told him the next time he speaks to me, he does it in front of someone. That's all he gets."

"And me?"

"You get a lot more than that," I said. "You get to explain the ledger."

His jaw tightened.

"Not today," I said. "Today you get to stop thinking I'm leaving."

I put my hands on his chest and pushed.

He went back against the long table, and the ledger shifted, and neither of us looked at it.

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