My Husband Pretended to Love Me novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Voice Wasn't a Dream

Tamara's POV

He came to the back door at ten past ten and knocked three times.

I let him in, and I locked the door behind him, and I took him upstairs so no one would hear.

He stood by my crooked shelf and did not sit.

"Tell me," he said.

I sat on the edge of the bed with my hands between my knees.

"On the morning we married, I was in the courthouse bathroom, putting on lipstick," I said. "A voice spoke inside my head."

He didn't move.

"It said: Ten years as Stanley McAlister's wife. If at the end he truly loves you, you keep your life. If not, you are erased. Every mind forgets you but the mind that loves you."

"A voice."

"It said it once, and I told myself it was nerves, and I buried it. Then I forgot it for years."

"And you never..." He stopped. "You knew there was a test."

"I half knew. That's why I never asked you. I was afraid that if I asked, I'd get an answer, or I'd make you say something to please me, and it wouldn't count."

I looked up at him.

"The night of the party, when you stood at the microphone, it came back. It said condition not met. I took the ring off before it spoke, Stanley. I took it off because of what you said to her. The voice came after."

I watched it land on him.

He sat down on the floor, right where he was, with his back against the shelf.

"I thought you'd..." He pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes. "I thought you'd had a plan. I thought you'd waited ten years to collect."

"Collect what?"

"I don't know. A divorce. A settlement. The house."

"I would have taken a divorce lawyer's card and a bus ticket," I said. "I'd have told you off. I'd have kept every dish."

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