After I Learned I Was Going to Be His Ex-Wife novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Not a Birthday Party

Benedict follows her out and they fight; she agrees to stay legally married until Gran's June 6 handover and moves out, then finds the shoebox where he's kept every card she ever wrote him.

I didn't take the pen.

I took the contract.

"I'll read it," I said. "I read everything before I sign it. Ask my husband."

Edmund's smile stayed exactly where it was.

"Take the weekend. The money's not going anywhere."

The hotel door banged open behind him.

Benedict came down the steps without his coat, which I had never seen him do in March.

Edmund lifted both hands. "I was just offering my condolences."

"Go inside, Edmund."

"It's my family's hotel too, cousin."

"Then go inside it."

Edmund laughed and went, and he winked at me on the way past.

[wait why is the hero chasing her]

[he doesn't chase her in the book. he goes back to his tart]

Benedict stopped one step above me, so for once I was looking up at him even more than usual.

"A divorce," he said.

"You were there. I said it pretty clearly."

"In front of the board."

"You told the board my work was a birthday party. I thought we were sharing."

A muscle moved in his jaw.

"That was about the reopening. It wasn't about you."

"Benedict. I am my work. That's the whole thing about me."

He looked at the paper in my hand.

"What's that?"

"A job offer. From your cousin. Forty thousand dollars to do my murder thing in your ballroom."

"Edmund doesn't book the ballroom."

"Then cancel it. Go back in and cancel it in front of Gran. I'll wait."

He didn't move.

Gran had asked for entertainment. Gran got what Gran asked for.

We both knew it.

[ok this is kind of hot actually]

[NO. we are not shipping the ex-wife]

A cab slowed for me and I waved it on.

"You're cold," he said.

"I'm fine."

"Your teeth are going."

"That's rage. It's very warming."

He almost smiled. I watched him catch it and put it away.

"June 6," he said.

There it was.

"Gran hands over the chair on reopening night," he said. "To a married man. You know the rule."

"I know the rule. Everybody at that table knows the rule. Your cousin's been counting the days since the wedding."

"If you file now, it's his."

"So the hotel your grandfather built goes to the man who calls my work adorable."

"I'm asking you to wait."

"You're asking me to keep being your wife for three months."

"On paper."

He said it like that made it smaller.

I looked past him at the hotel, all lit up behind the scaffolding.

Two years ago he had stood in a City Hall hallway and said, "I don't do love. I can do loyal."

I had said yes because I thought loyal was a door.

[she's going to say no. she has to say no. that's chapter 4]

I could feel the readers leaning in.

"Fine," I said.

[WHAT]

"On paper, until June 6. After that I sign whatever your lawyers want and you never see me again."

"Hen."

"I'm moving out tonight. Not Sunday. Tonight."

"There's no reason for that."

"There's every reason. I don't want to sleep next to you and be on paper."

He took that one straight in the chest. I saw it land.

"And no more cards," I said.

He was quiet for a long time.

"All right," he said.

He held his coat out to me. He'd been carrying it the whole time.

I didn't take that either.

The penthouse was dark when I let myself in.

I turned on every light.

I packed the way I strike a set: fast, labeled, nothing sentimental.

Blouses. Trench coat. Six wigs in their own little hatboxes.

The good knives from my mother, which he had never once used.

At midnight I heard the elevator.

He didn't come in. He stood in the bedroom doorway with his tie gone and watched me fold.

"Where will you go?"

"The club. Zelda has a cot and a cat."

"The club doesn't have a shower."

"It has a sink and a very supportive community."

"Let me get you a hotel."

"You don't have a hotel. Yours is closed."

That one almost got him too.

He went to the kitchen. I heard the kettle.

My phone was dying, and my charger was on his side of the bed, because his side had the good outlet.

I knelt and opened his nightstand drawer to find the spare.

There was no charger.

There was a shoebox.

Plain, white, a men's dress shoe, size twelve.

I lifted the lid.

Index cards.

Hundreds of them, packed upright, tight as a card catalog.

My handwriting on every single one.

The one at the very front was creased down the middle.

BRIDEGROOM. A HONEYMOON SUITE. FIRST LINE: "I've been waiting all day to get you alone."

Our wedding night.

Behind it, the second night. The third. The fortieth.

He had kept every card I ever wrote him, in order.

[huh]

[that's... not in the book]

The kettle clicked off in the kitchen.

I heard his footsteps coming back down the hall.

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