My Marriage Was Their Bet novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Eleventh Anniversary

On what would have been my eleventh anniversary, I set the table myself.

It was the long steel table in the Fenner Street kitchen, with a white cloth over it.

Fourteen chairs stood around it, and none of them matched.

Nobody had told me where to seat anyone.

Bancroft had taken a plea in the spring, for the clinic plan and the drained accounts.

The court had given Bea her payroll back in a week.

I did not think about him much anymore, and tonight I did not think about him at all.

Samson came at five, two hours before anyone else, with a bunch of yellow roses.

He had flour on his sleeve from helping Bea unload.

He stopped in the pantry doorway, where I was counting plates.

"You said seven," he said.

"I said everyone else at seven."

I took the roses from him and set them on the shelf.

"You've never come early to anything of mine," I said.

"I used to leave before dessert."

"I remember."

"I'd like to stay for it tonight."

"Then you have to earn it," I said, and pulled him in by the tie.

The pantry was narrow, and it smelled of flour and lemon.

He kissed me against the shelves with a hand braced beside my head.

A bag of rice slid off and burst on the floor, and neither of us stopped.

"Door," I said against his mouth.

He kicked it shut.

I got his jacket off his shoulders and my dress up to my waist.

He lifted me onto the low counter and stepped between my knees.

"Tell me what you want," he said, low.

"Now."

"I meant the first part."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Marriage Was Their Bet from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.