Chapter 20: Her Answer

The ballroom held still.

Preston knelt on the polished floor in his wedding tux, and his eyes were wet, and he looked younger than he had in years.

"I love you," he said again. "I've always loved you."

"I was a coward, and I told the truth too late, and I know that. But I'm here."

Three hundred and fifty people waited for me to speak.

I thought of the clerk in the courthouse, and the plastic fern.

I looked down at the man I had waited seven years for, and I felt nothing but a small, clean sorrow.

"Preston," I said. "Get up."

"Not until you answer."

"I'll answer you standing. You can hear it from the floor."

He stayed where he was.

"You told the truth today because it was already coming out."

"You told it at the bar because I tricked you. Neither of those was a choice."

"This one is."

"It's the first choice I've seen from you in six years, and I'm glad you made it."

I took a breath.

"And I'm sorry it cost you your wedding."

"I don't care about the wedding."

"I know. You never wanted it."

His face crumpled.

"But your love came too late," I said. "I'm someone else's wife."

Beside me, Eli's hand tightened over mine.

I turned and said it so the back row could hear.

"I'm Eli Corrigan's wife."

"He carried me out of a fire and sat on my staircase and gave me back my mother's face."

"I didn't marry him for that. I married him out of spite."

Keep reading free with an account. Start His Love Came Too Late, I'm Already Another's Wife from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.