Divorce While I'm Pregnant? Fine, Let's Sign It! novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: What He Heard

I didn't sleep again.

At six, I came down to the kitchen in my coat, with the proxy folder under my arm and my questions in order.

Otis was at the oven pulling out the first tray of croissants.

He set it down and wiped his hands, and I understood he had been waiting for me.

"Ask," he said.

"At the door of the shop on Tuesday, you said, Sit before your knees go."

"I did."

"You put tea next to me before I'd said anything."

"You were pale."

"I was standing three feet inside your door with my phone out. I hadn't said Holden's name. Nobody had said mine."

He didn't answer.

"You knew who I was."

The oven ticked.

"Yes," Otis said.

I had known it was coming, and it still hit me in the stomach.

"How?"

"They came in on Thursdays." His voice was very even. "Since the third week of October. Table nine, three o'clock. She ate the tiramisu, and he drank black coffee and never touched his plate."

"Every Thursday."

"Seven of them."

"You watched them for seven weeks."

"I didn't watch. I served. I brought the coffee, and I heard it." He put the cloth down. "They talked about you. Not your name, he never said it. She called you 'the wife.' He called you 'Greta' once, in the third week."

"What did they say?"

"The divorce, and when. The week of the shower. Page nine, and who would draw it up. The nursery, and how Daphne would paint it so you'd be grateful." He said the last part slowly. "That she'd be a better mother than you'd ever be, because you were too soft."

I sat down on an overturned crate.

My face was cold, and my hands were colder.

"Seven weeks," I said.

"Yes."

"You could have called me. You could have mailed a card to the penthouse."

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