He Divorced Me in Front of Four Hundred People, So I Moved Into His Rival's Glass Penthouse novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Every Light On

The morning after the reception, the whole city knew Leighton Davenport could not tell one face from another.

Emmett brought the tablet in at seven, and then he brought a second tablet.

There were a hundred headlines, and a long-lens photograph of the Lantern at night with a woman in it.

She stood at the window in a red dress with a man's hands on her face.

It was me.

"They've been shooting the building from the park," Emmett said, miserably. "You should close the... I mean, there aren't any curtains, but I could..."

"Don't," I said.

He stopped.

Leighton stood at the end of the room with his back to us, looking down at the park.

He had not slept.

He had held me all night, and every time I woke, his thumbs were on my cheeks.

I took the tablet from Emmett and looked at the photograph for a long moment.

A woman who was being touched.

"It's a good picture," I said.

"Margo," Leighton said, not turning.

"I'm done being the woman at the edge of the crowd. If they want to look, they can look."

I handed back the tablet.

"Emmett, thank you. Go home."

He went.

I walked the length of the room and began to turn on every light.

The floor lamps.

The pendant over the island.

The long strip along the ceiling, the sconces by the sofa, and the green lamp on my drafting table.

By the time I finished, the Lantern burned on top of the dark morning.

Leighton turned around.

"What are you doing?"

"I want the city to see us."

"Margo."

"I don't want to hide behind a curtain. I don't want to be hidden. Say something."

"I want that too," he said, and his voice cracked. "God help me. I want that too."

I crossed the room to him and took the lapels of his shirt in my fists.

"Then come here."

I walked him backward to the kitchen island, a slab of white stone under the pendant light.

Behind it the glass went all the way to the ceiling.

Below us the park was waking up, joggers and strollers and the first gold light on the lawn.

I let go of his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders.

Then I pulled my own sweater over my head and dropped it, and my breasts swung free in the light.

His eyes went black.

"Take off your trousers," I said. "Lift me up."

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