Betrayed by My Husband, Taken by His Billionaire Uncle novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: After Hours

I crossed the hallway to him.

"August."

He blinked.

"That was good," he said. "What she said. It's in the clerk's notes now. That's good for you."

"Then why do you look like somebody died?"

"I don't."

"You do. You look like you did on Sunday at your father's table."

He put his hand on my back and walked me to the elevator, past Chandler and his lawyer whispering on the bench.

"I have a meeting at the clinic at four," he said. "I'll come to the shop after you close."

"That's not an answer."

"I know," he said, and the doors opened.

By seven it was dark on Central Avenue, and the shop smelled like cedar and wet moss.

December had come in all at once.

Twelve wreaths were due on porches by Friday, and I had ribbon everywhere.

Red velvet, green satin, plaid, gold wire, all of it on spools on the pegboard over the worktable and half of it unrolled across the table itself.

Annabeth had gone to the bar at six with a wreath on each arm for the bartenders.

I flipped the sign, pulled the front blind and locked the green door.

Then I went down the back hall and checked the alley door.

Bolted.

No brick.

I'd checked it every night since the cooler.

He knocked on the glass at a quarter past seven.

I let him in, and he stood inside the door with cold air coming off his coat, and didn't kiss me.

He'd always kissed me at the door.

"Sit," I said. "You can hold wire."

He took off his coat, then his suit jacket, and hung them both on the stool by the register.

He sat across the worktable and held the gold wire while I wrapped.

For twenty minutes he said almost nothing.

He watched my hands.

He watched the ribbon.

Once he reached out and moved my mother's gardenia pot two inches so I wouldn't knock it with my elbow.

"Are you going to tell me?" I said finally.

"Tell you what?"

"Whatever you saw in that hallway."

"I saw Davina lose."

"No. You saw something after that." I put the scissors down. "You went somewhere, August. I watched you go."

He looked at the wire in his hands.

"It's a family thing," he said. "It's old, and it's stupid, and it's mine to fix."

"I'm in your family's lawsuits. I'm in your family's freezer. I'm on your family's leases." I leaned on my hands. "There isn't a Radford thing that isn't mine now."

His jaw moved.

"Give me a few days," he said. "Please. Then I'll tell you all of it."

I should have pushed.

I knew it even then.

But he looked so tired, and he'd said please, and he'd never once asked me for anything.

I came around the table.

I took the wire out of his hands and put it down among the spools.

"A few days," I said.

"A few days."

I stood between his knees.

He put his forehead against my stomach, against the green apron, and breathed out.

I put my hands in his hair.

"You're very quiet tonight," I said.

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