After Being Accused as a Mistress, I Married My Ex's Uncle novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Her Name First

Cora's POV

Declan reached the alley in ten minutes, and I have never been so glad to see a man park badly.

The man by the kitchen door was thick-necked and bored, with a phone in his hand and an earpiece.

Declan walked straight up to him.

He did not raise his voice.

"Tell my brother his driver is bad at his job," he said. "Tell him my wife's name is Cora Ellwood, and she has never needed a bodyguard from him. He may keep the man, if he wants a man who stands in an alley."

"Sir, I'm just..."

"Yes. I know." Declan took the phone from his hand, looked at it, and gave it back with the screen cracked. "Go home."

The man went.

Romy leaned out of the kitchen door with a cleaver.

"I was going to do that," she said.

"You can do the next one."

In the car, I waited for him to speak, and he didn't.

He drove the whole way to Lincoln Park with his knuckles pale on the wheel.

In the penthouse he took off his coat, stood in the middle of the long room, and told me about his mother.

He told it in order, with his hands at his sides, down to the coat taken off her arm.

"I stood in the doorway then too," Declan said. "I've been standing in one ever since."

I didn't say a word.

I walked across the room, took his face in both hands and kissed him, soft and slow, until he stopped shaking.

"I'm sorry," I said against his mouth.

"You don't owe me that."

"I owe you one thing," I said. "I thought you married me to hurt your brother."

He went very still.

"I thought I was a prop in a family war," I said. "That's why every nice thing you did looked like a move. The jacket. The ring. Please be here. I kept turning them over, looking for the price."

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