My Fiance Kissed My Best Friend on Our Fourth Anniversary novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Tuesday at Noon

The baker was the first to tear his notice.

He ripped it in half, then in quarters, and let the pieces fall on the sidewalk.

"I've sold Sheila Tolland her anniversary cake for nineteen years," he said. "She never once said thank you."

The dentist tore his next.

Then the woman who ran the yarn shop, then the two brothers who owned the tire store, then the florist.

Twelve notices went into a pile at my feet.

A black sedan pulled up to the curb.

Sheila got out in a cream suit and sunglasses, with her silver hair pinned so tight it looked painful.

She looked at the pile of paper, then at the old drugstore with my father's sign over the door.

She did not smile.

"June," Sheila said. "Walk with me."

"Say it here."

"I'd prefer a private word."

"I'd prefer a public one."

Behind me a hundred people turned to listen.

Sheila took off her sunglasses.

Her eyes were red-rimmed, and for once they were not warm or fake.

"Fifty thousand dollars," she said. "I'll write your father a check this afternoon and renew his lease for five years. All you have to do is sign one page, saying you were upset and you made some of it up."

"Which part did I make up?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"The part about me."

"You mean the part where you pay my father fifty thousand dollars to call a hundred people liars?"

Sheila's jaw tightened.

"The part where you left me a voicemail forgiving me for walking in on your son?"

"That is enough."

"The part where you changed my father's locks the morning after your son got arrested?"

"I was protecting my family."

"From who?"

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