He Was Reborn to Claim Me, But I'm Already Married novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Both of Us

I drove to my parents' house on Tuesday to collect Jocelyn's winter coats.

I parked on the street, turned off the engine, and the passenger door opened.

Leighton slid in and shut it.

He had been waiting somewhere I couldn't see, which meant he'd had my schedule for days.

"Get out," I said.

"No."

"I'll scream."

"You won't." He leaned back in the seat and looked at me, and for the first time there was nothing performed in it. "You'd have screamed in the garden if you were going to."

His voice was rough.

He looked tired, older than twenty-eight.

I watched his hands.

They were shaking a little against his knees.

"You remember," he said.

It wasn't a question.

I thought about lying.

"Every day of it," I said.

He closed his eyes.

For a moment I thought he would be sick.

"I woke up Saturday morning," he said. "In my own bed, twenty-eight years old, with the sun on the wall. I thought, I'm in hell, and then I thought, no, there's a peach tree outside."

"How long did you search for her?"

"Fourteen years." His eyes opened. "I hired every investigator on the East Coast. I dug up the lake bed. I read every cemetery record in New England. You buried her somewhere, Audra, and you let me look."

"Yes."

He flinched.

He had expected me to deny it.

"Why?" he said.

"Because you never once asked me how I died."

"I know how you died. You were sick."

"I was thirty-six," I said. "I had a hospital bed and a husband who stood over it and asked about someone else."

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