He Held Her Son the Night I Lost Ours novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Rafe's Doorstep

Rafe's POV

I went down the stairs in my trousers and no shirt, and I opened the door before he could ring again.

Clark Haliburton stood on my step in a suit that had stopped being charcoal an hour ago.

He was soaked through.

He had no coat, no umbrella and no look of a man who had slept in a week.

"How did you get this address?" I said.

"Your courier left it on the studio's delivery slip." He tried a smile and failed. "I've spent a lot of years in other people's paperwork."

"It's two in the morning."

"I know what time it is."

"She's asleep," I said, which was a lie, and a very good one.

He looked past me at the empty hall.

He looked at the coat on the hook, a woman's gray wool, with a pencil sticking out of the pocket.

I watched him understand it.

Something went across his face that I'd have given a great deal not to feel sorry about.

"I came to make you an offer," he said.

"I'm not selling anything."

"Forty thousand dollars." He took a damp envelope out of his jacket. "It's the last account my mother can't reach. She froze everything else this afternoon. Take it. It's yours if you tell her you made a mistake and send her home."

I did not take it.

I looked at him for long enough that he lowered it.

"You think she's for sale," I said.

"I think you're a decent man who got caught in something that isn't yours."

"I'm not that decent."

"Then name a number."

"Mr. Haliburton." I kept my voice very level, because my hands wanted to do something else. "Last Monday, you stood in my studio and told twelve strangers about her miscarriage. This morning you let your friend cut a video that made her a monster. Tonight you've come to pay me, in the rain, to take her off your hands."

← Chapter 16 · All chapters · Chapter 18 →

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