I Didn't Marry Him, I Married The One He Hated novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Not Across the Street

Linnea's POV

I followed the flatbed in my own car and parked a block back.

Magnus had said alone, and I had said not alone, and neither of us had won.

The store was empty except for Trevor at the register, counting the drawer with the tip of his tongue between his teeth.

The employees had gone home.

The sun was low over the harbor, and the light through the front window was the color of weak tea.

Magnus walked in, and Trevor looked up.

I stopped inside the door and let it close behind me without the bell ringing.

"Well," Trevor said. "The convict, in my store."

"Dad wrote it down," Magnus said.

Trevor's hand stopped on the cash.

"Wrote what?"

"What he asked me to do in the hospital. Who was driving. Where it went afterward." Magnus laid the white envelope on the counter, flat, with his hand over it. "Greta has the other one. She hasn't read it. Linnea has."

Trevor looked past him and saw me.

I watched his face do four things in a row.

First it went blank, then white, and then it went to the old place, the sorrowful one.

"Linnea," he said, soft.

"Don't."

"You came." He came around the counter with his hands open. "Baby, listen. I've been awful. I let my family poison you, I let Shelby do something stupid, and I was a coward. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

I had waited four years to hear him say it.

It came out of him easily, as if he had practiced.

"I'll fix the loan tonight," he said. "I'll walk it to the bank myself. Your name comes off, free and clear. All I'm asking is that you walk out of here with me."

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