Gilded Revenge: The Ex-Wife's Billion-Dollar Empire novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Cabin

"Out," Lucinda said. "Passenger side. Now."

The driver's door was crushed against the rock.

She got her shoulder against Alden's seat and shoved, and he half fell out into the leaves.

She came after him on her hands and knees.

Above them on the road, two pairs of boots hit the gravel.

"Down the slope," she said. "Stay low."

"My father's cabin is on this ridge," Alden said, breathing hard. "A mile east, through the pines."

"Can you walk it?"

"I walked into a boardroom this morning."

"That wasn't a mile."

"Then watch me."

They ran.

He ran badly, with a hitch in his left leg that she heard in every step.

She took his arm and did not let go.

Branches whipped her face, and the light turned gold, then gray.

Behind them, a man shouted, once, and then the shouting faded.

Twice she dragged Alden down into a gully and pressed his head to the leaves while boots crashed past.

The second time his hand found hers in the dirt.

Neither of them moved it.

When the woods finally went quiet, it was almost dark.

The cabin stood in a clearing with a stone chimney and a porch.

Alden found the key under a flowerpot without looking.

Inside it smelled of cedar and cold ash.

He lit the lamp, and she bolted the door and drew the shutters.

Then she saw his arm.

A long scratch ran from his wrist to his elbow, deep in one place, and blood had soaked the whole cuff.

"Sit," she said.

"It's nothing."

"Sit."

He sat on the edge of the old bed, and she found a first aid tin in the kitchen and washed her hands.

She cleaned the cut in the lamplight and taped it shut.

He watched her fingers the whole time.

"You've done this before," he said.

"On you, mostly."

"I never thanked you."

"I told you not to."

"I know." His voice was low. "I'm going to anyway."

"That's not on the list."

"Then give me a list I'm allowed to break."

She tied off the tape.

She did not let go of his wrist.

The lamp hissed.

"You told me nurses don't cry," she said.

He went still.

"The night you stood by yourself. I went into the hall and I couldn't stop. It was the happiest I had been in three years. And you stood in the door and told me not to make a scene."

"I know."

"I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget what I was to you."

"Lucinda."

"A tool you were embarrassed to need."

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