Marry Me Twice, Mr. Granger novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Mr. Chisolm's House

Chisolm takes her phone, sets his rules and leaves marks on her arm, and she agrees to the Granger banquet for her own reasons.

Cornelius Chisolm lived on the nineteenth floor of a gray glass building where nothing had ever been spilled.

He took my phone in the elevator.

"You won't need it," he said.

He took my laptop at the door, and my purse.

Then he reached for the cord at my neck, and I closed my hand around the bead before he could.

He looked at my fist.

"Give it to me."

"It's glass. It's worth nothing to anyone but me."

"Then it won't be missed."

His voice never rose.

That was the first thing I learned about him, that he never needed it to.

He turned my fingers open one at a time.

He put the bead in a drawer in the hall.

Then he showed me the apartment.

The kitchen had one plate, one fork and one glass for each person.

The bedroom he gave me had a bed made with hospital corners and a lock on the outside of the door.

"For your safety," Chisolm said, and lifted the latch twice to show me it worked.

"I'm not a child, Cornelius."

"No. You're an asset with a deadline."

He said it kindly.

"On Thursday, Granger Holdings holds its annual banquet at the Drake."

"I've been passed over for a vice presidency twice."

"This year I will walk in with a Merrow on my arm."

"I'm not a Merrow to them. I'm Rhodri Granger's ex-wife."

"You are the Merrow of Merrow Glass," he said.

"You are also the only woman in that ballroom who has sat at the head of the Granger table."

"They will want to know why I have you. I will let them wonder."

I looked at him.

He wanted to be seen with the thing Rhodri had held and thrown away.

I understood that perfectly.

I also understood that the banquet was a room full of people with phones.

"Fine," I said.

His eyebrows moved a quarter inch.

"Fine?"

"I'll go. I'll smile." I kept my voice flat. "Then you let me visit my mother's shop on Sunday."

"That is not your decision."

"It's the price."

I had not planned to say it.

Something in me had been pulled tight for a year, and it had snapped in the front hall, and what was left was only stubborn.

Chisolm's glasses caught the light.

He stepped closer.

Then he took my upper arm, high up, under the sleeve of my sweater where no one would look, and squeezed.

It was not a blow.

It was a patient pressure, his thumb finding the tender place just beside the bone and settling there.

My knees went soft.

I did not make a sound.

"I do not negotiate with my wife," he said into my hair. "Your father warned me you would try. He was right. Say yes, Cornelius."

I took a slow breath.

"Yes, Cornelius."

He let go.

The ache spread down my arm.

"There," he said. "Good girl."

He smoothed my sleeve with the tips of his fingers.

I thought about the slap in my father's hall, which had been loud.

This had made no sound at all, and I could not decide which was worse.

Then I thought about Thursday.

He locked me in that night, and the next.

I lay on the hospital-corner bed and listened to him in the next room, typing, steady as a clock.

When the lights went out I pulled my sleeve up and looked at my arm in the glow of the city.

Four oval marks, already darkening.

I pressed the fifth one with my thumb until my eyes watered.

I was going to remember exactly where it was.

On Thursday at six the latch lifted.

Chisolm stood in the door in a pressed shirt with a coffee.

"Breakfast is at six-fifteen."

"You will wear the green dress your father sent, and you will not speak to anyone at the Drake unless I address you first."

"And if someone addresses me?"

"Then you will smile," he said, "and say that you are very happy."

That evening he walked me down to the car himself.

I stood beside him in the mirrored elevator, small in the glass, while he adjusted my collar to cover the marks.

"One more thing," he said. "Rhodri Granger will be there."

My throat tightened.

"I know."

"I'm not worried about him. A man like that sells and moves on."

He watched my face in the mirror.

"But I know your habits, Juliana. I read your marriage file."

He leaned down until his lips were beside my ear.

"Smile at Rhodri Granger once, and I'll know."

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