Dumped at the Altar, Claimed by a Hidden Tycoon novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: You Knew

Kendrick was waiting in the study at the lake house, with the doors closed and a fire lit.

He had not changed out of the clothes he wore for the morning's meetings.

He looked up when she came in, and he read her face before she said a word.

"Max told you there was more," he said.

"He told me you should tell me yourself."

"Sit down."

"No."

She stood in front of the desk with the dress box still under her arm.

"Vanessa says she nursed you for two years," Becky said. "Is that true?"

"It's true."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it made her sound like a good woman, and she isn't."

His jaw was tight.

"She was hired as my physical therapist's assistant after the crash. She stayed, and she was kind to me at my worst."

"And you thought that was love."

"I had nothing to compare it to. I proposed out of gratitude, and by the third month I knew I'd made a mistake."

"And you married her anyway."

"I didn't know how to say no to someone who had seen me that way."

Becky put the box down on the chair.

"All right," she said. "That I understand. Now tell me what else Max meant."

For a moment he said nothing.

The fire popped.

"Two weeks ago," Kendrick said, "Max gave me a file. It had photographs of Vanessa with another man. A sandy-haired man named Colby MacCormack."

Becky did not move.

"I read it twice," he said. "I decided to go ahead with the wedding and deal with her afterward, in private. I thought it was a small cruelty, and I could afford to wait."

"You knew his name."

"Yes."

"And yesterday in the hallway." She heard her own voice go very quiet. "When I walked up to you in a wedding dress."

"Max told me who you were as you came toward us," Kendrick said. "I knew the man you were about to marry was the same man in the photographs. I knew it before you said a word."

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