Unforgiven: The Billionaire's Amnesiac Ex-Wife novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Route 9

I did not touch the handbag again.

The detective arrived twenty minutes later in a gray sedan, put on gloves and lifted it into a paper evidence bag.

I watched the gold initials disappear under the fold.

Then I walked to the end of the drive, where the gravel met the road, and Stefan came after me.

"Say it," he said. "Say all of it. I won't answer back."

"Good. You've had your turn at that."

I turned around.

I had waited since the garage to say this.

"You watched me look for her," I said. "Roscoe told me I hired him two years ago. You were my husband. You drove me home from his office once, he says, and I cried on your shoulder in the car because he had no leads."

"Yes."

"And you held my hair back. You said we'd keep looking. You said somebody, somewhere, knew what happened to her."

"Lydia..."

"You were somebody. You knew. And you let me spend a year paying a stranger by the hour to find a car that was sitting forty minutes from our bed."

He stood there and took it.

"You let me say her name in our house," I said, "and you let your mother cut my pie on Sundays. I sat at that oak table, and I said thank you."

My voice cracked, and I let it.

"I don't get those years back, Stefan. I don't even remember them, and you do, and you've been walking around in them all week while I tried to be polite."

"I know."

"Don't say you know. That's the whole trouble. You always know."

I waited for him to look away.

He didn't.

"I have a statement," he said instead. "I'd like to give it now, to the detective. Before anyone gets to me with a lawyer."

"It won't change anything."

"It won't bring her back or give you the years." His jaw worked. "It's the only thing I have that is mine to give."

← Chapter 15 · All chapters · Chapter 17 →

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