Chapter 5: Her Terms

"No," I said.

Brogan didn't blink.

"Think about it before you answer again."

"I have thought about it. I've known you for three conversations. I'm not marrying a stranger because a man in a lobby told me to."

"I did not tell you to. I asked."

"It sounded like an order."

Hattie made a small noise behind me, and it could have been a laugh.

Brogan looked at her, then at me.

"All right," he said. "What would make it an answer you could say yes to?"

Nobody had asked me that in four years.

I looked at the hospital bracelet on my wrist.

I thought about the Reeve house, and the ring, and a table where nobody had moved when I was hit.

I thought about a white van that had not slowed down.

"Give me a pen," I said.

Hattie dug one out of her scrubs, and I turned over my discharge sheet and wrote on the back of it.

I wrote it the way my father had taught me to write an invoice, with the numbers down the side.

One. One year, and not a day longer unless I say so.

Two. Separate bedrooms.

Three. No lies, not even kind ones.

Four. You don't touch me unless I ask.

Five. Every dollar I earn from today is mine, and I keep it.

I held the page out.

He read it standing in the gap of the curtain with his arm in the sling.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Divorced, Now Watch Me Rise from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.