He Chose Her. I Left Carrying His Heir. novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Founder's Kitchen

Floyd lived in a farmhouse a quarter mile behind the clubhouse, with a porch light that had been burning since I was twenty-one.

I had eaten Thanksgiving in that kitchen eight times.

I had never once sat there with my hands under the table to hide that they were shaking.

Rhett took the chair across from his father and stayed silent.

Floyd put three mugs on the table and poured coffee into two of them.

"Not for her," he said, and he poured a glass of milk for me instead. "The baby."

"Don't be kind to me," I said. "Not tonight."

"All right." He lowered himself into his chair. "Then I'll say it plain."

He looked at Rhett.

"You didn't drive the truck."

Nobody spoke.

The clock over the stove ticked, and the refrigerator hummed.

"I know I didn't," Rhett said.

"I know you know." Floyd's hands were folded on the table, and the knuckles were white. "I sat in the sheriff's office at three in the morning, with a deputy on the other side of the glass. I looked at Cade being sick in a trash can. I looked at you with a dead man's blood on your shirt."

"I remember," Rhett said.

"And I said, 'Rhett, tell them you drove.'"

"I remember that, too."

"I said it was two years. A first offense, a good boy with no record. I said I'd have you home by Christmas of the year after." The old man's voice broke. "They gave you ten."

"You wrote me four times."

"I stopped."

"Why?"

"Because every letter was a confession," Floyd said. "I couldn't put my pen on a page and make it say what happened. So I put nothing on it."

Rhett's jaw worked.

I watched him, and I did not touch him, because I could feel something coming off him that would have burned my hand.

← Chapter 17 · All chapters · Chapter 19 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend