He Let Our Daughter Die, I Became A Tycoon's Bride novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Hattie Comes Home

Hattie left the hospital eight days later in a wheelchair with a pink bow on it.

Cillian pushed her through the front doors of the Draper estate, and she looked up at the staircase and the tall windows and the long table in the hall.

"Is all this yours?"

"Yours too," Cillian said. "As long as you want it."

"Does it have a dog?"

"I'll find one."

"A real dog?"

"The realest one in Leacrest."

She nodded gravely.

Biscuit sat in her lap with his chewed ear folded over.

"I need my braids done," she told him. "Mommy's leg hurts."

"I can do that," Cillian said.

I stared at him.

"You can?"

"I watched a video."

He knelt behind the chair, took her strawberry hair in both hands and began to divide it into three.

He worked for a long time with his tongue between his teeth.

Hattie sat very straight.

"Mr. Helicopter," she said. "That's upside down."

"It's not."

"It's a knot."

"It's a braid."

"It's a knot with a tail."

I put my hand over my mouth again, and the housekeeper laughed out loud in the doorway.

Cillian looked up at me with the loop of hair around his fingers and his ears bright red.

"Help," he said.

I knelt beside him and showed him the cross-over, slowly.

"Left over middle. Right over middle."

His hand covered mine on the ribbon.

Hattie watched us both.

"You smell like each other," she said.

"What does that mean?" Cillian said.

"It means you're married."

That night I tucked her in, and she fell asleep with two crooked braids and her hand on Biscuit.

I stood in her doorway for a long time and watched her breathe.

At eleven, my phone rang in my pocket.

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