He Sent Me Away for Three Years. Now My Divorce Has Him Panicking. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Side Door

Dalton begs at her hotel door and agrees to every demand too easily; in the lobby Belinda's phone shows the assistant's message: she went to the side door like you said.

Dalton knocked on my hotel door at midnight.

I knew it was him because he knocked three times and then stopped, the way he used to knock on my office door when he wanted something signed.

Biscuit stood up on the bed and growled at the wood.

"Monica," Dalton said through the door. "Five minutes."

I opened it on the chain.

He had taken off his tie and his jacket, and his shirt was creased down one side.

He looked like a man who had spent four hours in a car park, because he had. The doorman had told me.

"You said there's no Mrs. Aldridge," I said. "So there's no one here to open the door for."

"I said it because I panicked."

"You said it into a microphone."

"I know." He put his palm flat on the door frame. "I'll say anything you want me to say. I'll say it on the same stage tomorrow."

"I don't want you to say anything."

"Then tell me what you want."

I thought about it for a moment, and then I unhooked the chain, because the hallway had ears.

He came in and stood by the window, careful not to touch anything, and Biscuit sat on my foot.

"Three things," I said. "Every patent filed in my name stays in my name, and the company licenses them from me at the rate I set."

"Done."

"My name goes back on the lab door in Harbor City. And on the building here."

"Done."

"Biscuit lives with me."

"Monica." He almost smiled, and I hated that I noticed. "He was always yours."

It was too easy.

Dalton Aldridge had once made me redo a slide deck six times because the font was a point too small.

He did not hand over eleven patents and a billion dollars in licensing because somebody asked.

"Why won't you sign?" I said.

He didn't answer.

"If it's the trust, I know about the trust. Your grandfather's lawyers. Married with an heir by thirty."

I had found the summary in his desk the week we got married, and I had spent three years pretending I hadn't.

"You wanted a wife on paper and a son in the penthouse," I said. "You have both. I'm the paper. So why not let go of the paper?"

"It isn't what you think."

"It's exactly what it looks like. Belinda knew my name. Belinda had my dog."

"Monica." His voice dropped. "Ask me anything else."

"Why did you send me to Harbor City the day after the wedding?"

His jaw moved.

"Because it was best for the company," he said.

It was the same voice he used for investors.

Something in his face had gone shut, like a safe.

"My mother had surgery three weeks ago," I said. "I asked you for two weeks. You told me she wasn't dead yet."

He looked at the carpet.

"You don't get to stand in my room and say it was best for the company."

"I know."

"Then say something true."

He opened his mouth, and I watched him decide not to.

"I'll have the assignments drafted by Monday," he said instead. "I'll leave the second part of this conversation until you can stand to hear it."

"There isn't a second part."

"There is," Dalton said, quietly. "I just can't start it tonight."

He went to the door and stopped with his hand on the handle.

"I didn't say it to her because I wanted to," he said. "Whatever you saw tonight, I didn't want it."

"You were holding her son."

"Yes."

"You kissed his hair."

"Yes." The word came out strained. "I'd do that part again."

He left without looking back, which was the first thing he had done in three years that I couldn't predict.

I sat down on the bed and let Biscuit climb into my lap.

My phone showed 12:40 and a dead battery warning.

I had left my charger in the taxi.

So I took the elevator down to ask the front desk for one, with Biscuit tucked under my arm.

Belinda was sitting in the lobby.

She had Archie asleep across her lap, one small shoe dangling, and she was holding a charger out to me before I'd said a word.

"I thought you might need this," she said softly. "Dalton told me which hotel. I'm so sorry about tonight, Monica. None of it came out the way he meant."

It was a kind thing to do.

I almost said thank you.

Then her phone lit up on the arm of the chair.

The assistant's name was at the top of the screen, the same name that had texted me from the taxi.

"Done," the message said. "She went to the side door like you said."

Belinda turned the phone face down with two fingers.

"Is something wrong?" she asked gently.

I held out my hand for the charger and took it.

"No," I said, and I watched her eyes while I smiled. "Nothing at all."

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