His Secret Wife Walked Away Pregnant novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: At the Table
Bennett's POV
I had the ring in my left pocket and the question in my mouth, and neither one would come out.
Joanna stood on the courthouse steps in Gran's gray scarf, with her decree folded in her glove.
Her coat did not close over her stomach any more.
"You look sick," she said.
"I'm fine."
"You look like you're about to be sentenced."
"I've been carrying something around," I said. "For six weeks."
"I know," she said. "Teagan found the box."
I stared at her.
"In your sock drawer. She was looking for a cufflink." Her mouth shook. "She told me in the hall, and then she cried, and then she made me promise to act surprised."
"Are you acting?"
"Badly."
I took my hand out of my pocket and held out the box, on my open palm, on a public step, in the cold.
Then I remembered that I had planned a speech.
I couldn't remember a word of it.
"Joanna Keene," I said. "I would like to marry you."
She looked at the box and did not open it.
"Not here," she said.
My stomach dropped through the stone.
"Not because of the answer," she said quickly. "Because it's the wrong place. Three years ago I stood in a room just like that, with a man who made me promise to tell nobody."
"I know."
"I want to be asked at a table. With everyone there."
I had not thought of that, and it was exactly right.
"Sunday," I said. "Dinner."
"Sunday."
On Sunday, I stood at the head of my grandmother's table with my napkin in my fist.
The chair at the foot, where an empty plate had sat for three Christmases, was full.
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