My Husband Pretended to Love Me novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: What I Owe

Stanley's POV

Lydia let the photograph sit on the screen until the room had read it.

A hundred donors in linen and pearls leaned toward the glass, and a woman near me said, "Oh, how awful."

"This was taken outside the diner on Sheridan Road," Lydia said into the microphone. "The building my foundation is replacing."

She sounded sad.

"The woman is a waitress there. She works a few doors from where we want to build a clinic for children. And she is, I'm told, quite generous with her attention to engaged men."

A few people laughed, low and unkind.

Tamara stood at the back wall with her tray, in the agency's black vest, and she did not drop it.

"I'll spare the man his name," Lydia said. "He's here."

She turned and smiled at me.

"Darling, tell them how kind you've always been to the staff."

Every head in the ballroom swung toward my table.

I had once stood at a different microphone and let a lawn full of people watch my wife take off her ring.

That was the worst thing I had ever done, and I'd had ten years to understand it.

I stood up.

I walked to the front and took the microphone out of Lydia's hand.

She let me.

She was still smiling, and there was a warning in her eyes.

"That's me in the photograph," I said.

The room was silent.

"I was kissing her, and she kissed me back, and she'd earned the right to throw me off a pier. She has never asked me for a dollar, a favor or a ride."

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