The Ex-Change novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Original Dinner

In the morning I was polite.

I said good morning, and I said please pass the butter.

I called him "Mr. Hartley" once, in a sweet voice, so he could hear how far away I had gone.

Jude set down his espresso.

"Did I snore?"

"Like a gentleman."

"Did I do something else?"

"You did nothing. You were asleep."

That was true, and it was why I was angry.

A man who was using me should not have slept with his hand behind my knee.

Lowen clapped her hands at the end of the breakfast table, and the crew started carrying cables out onto the terrace.

"Today's exchange is the Original Dinner," she said. "Each of you eats alone with your own ex, on camera, on the dock. No script. Just closure. The audience votes on who handles it best."

Vanessa slid her chair back and smiled at Jude.

"Don't look so grim. I'll be nice."

"You always were," Jude said.

I didn't miss the way he held her chair.

I told myself it was manners.

The dock had been set with one long table, white linen, forty candles in glass jars and a bottle of wine already open.

The sun had gone down behind the mountains, and the lake was a sheet of dark silk.

Colton was waiting for me in a pale blue shirt, rolled at the sleeves, and he stood up when I arrived, the way he had at our wedding.

"You look beautiful," he said.

"I look tired. Sit down."

He sat.

A camera on a long arm swung over us and came to rest, with its little light glowing.

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