The Dragon Mother Returns: Taking Back Everything That Belongs to My Daughter novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Second

Paisley got to her first.

"We're leaving," she said, and held out her palm for the car keys. "Now."

Clara didn't give them to her.

She was still looking at me down the length of the room.

"Clara. Keys."

Clara looked at Paisley's hand.

She looked at the brooch on Paisley's shoulder.

Then she dropped the keys into the open palm.

"Take the car," she said. "I'll get the train."

Paisley's mouth fell open.

"You're not serious. Daddy will lose his mind."

"Tell him I'm getting the train."

For a moment Paisley stood there with every face in the gallery on her.

Then she went.

We heard her heels on the sidewalk, and the car door, and the engine revving too hard, and then she was gone up Chapel Street.

Clara stared after her.

"I have never done that before," she said to nobody.

Matthias appeared at my side with three plastic cups of wine.

He held one out to Clara.

"For the train," he said.

She took it.

"I will be outside, looking at a church," he told me. "There are many. I'll pick one."

He went out, and the gallery slowly started talking again.

Clara and I sat on the steps outside in the April sun.

New Haven Green was across the street, full of students and pigeons.

She drank her wine and didn't look at me.

"You told the cook I don't have to drive her," she said. "So she asks now. Nicely. And I say yes, because if I'm in the car, I'm not in the house with him."

"Okay."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Say okay. Like you're a therapist."

I nearly smiled. "What should I say?"

"I don't know. Something like you."

She put the cup down on the step.

"Do you know how many times I came second?"

← Chapter 9 · All chapters · Chapter 11 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend