Cold Marriage, Burning Regret novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Seawall

Scott's POV

Lydia called the office line at six, because my phone was still on a floor in Mara Quinn's spare room.

"She knows," Lydia said. "She sat in my suite and read me your chart."

I stood at the window with the Loop lit up below me.

"What did you tell her?"

"That you chose her. She asked me straight, and I'm tired of lying to a good woman."

I closed my eyes.

"Lydia, I never chose her to hurt her."

"Then you should have told her yourself." Her voice was kind, the way it always was. "Don't say anything to anyone before the thirtieth. Nothing changes if you stay quiet."

She hung up.

I stood there until my assistant knocked, and I told her to go home.

Mara Quinn opened her door in scrubs, with her red hair tied up and her arms crossed.

She looked at me for a long moment.

"She's not here."

"Where is she?"

"I told her not to tell you where she'd be." Mara looked past me at the elevator. "Then she told me anyway, because she's an idiot who thinks you deserve a hearing. Oak Street Beach."

"Thank you."

"If you make her cry, Ellery, I will put a stent in you with no anesthetic."

"I understand."

"I'm an emergency physician. I'd enjoy it."

I found Marcella on the seawall past the empty lifeguard chair, in her coat, with the brown envelope on her knees.

The wind off the lake had turned her cheeks pink and her hair into a mess.

She did not turn around when I sat down a body's width from her.

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