My Wedding Was a Fake, So I Claimed My Fortune and a Billionaire novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Her Grandmother's Desk

I had nine minutes to get my dress back on.

Auden took four.

He kissed me once more at the back door, pulled his tie out of his pocket, and went over the garden wall like a man who'd done it before.

I stood at the sink with my dress zipped crooked and my hair in a fist, and ran the tap.

Davis came through the front door at five-oh-nine.

"Wallet," he called.

"On the hall table," I said.

He found it.

He stood in the kitchen doorway and looked at me for a long, odd second.

"You're flushed."

"I'm making soup. It's hot in here."

His eyes slid to the island.

My breath stopped.

Then he said, "Smells good," kissed my cheek, and left.

I gripped the edge of the sink and laughed until it turned into shaking.

The next evening I stood in the second-floor office of Calhoun Wharf with the harbor going dark through the windows.

It was a long, quiet room of dark wood and old maps.

My grandmother's walnut desk sat at one end, big as a boat, with her brass lamp still on it.

I had not sat at it since the funeral.

Auden came in behind me and shut the door.

"You've been here before," I said.

"No."

"You went straight to the light switch."

"It's where light switches are."

I turned.

He stood against the door in his charcoal suit with his shaved head catching the lamp.

He looked like a thing I'd been given by mistake and would never give back.

"This was her desk," I said. "I used to do my homework under it."

"Show me."

"What?"

"Show me where you sat."

I walked to the desk and touched the green leather top.

"She'd let me hide under there during board meetings. I'd listen to the men talk and draw ships on her shoes."

"Did she ever let anyone treat you like less than a Calhoun?"

"Never."

"Then he never should have either."

He came across the room, took off his jacket, and hung it on the chair.

He took the tie off slowly and wound it once around his fist.

I watched it.

"Give me your hands," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I'm asking."

I held them out.

He wound the silk twice around my wrists, snugly, and knotted it.

My heart thundered.

It was gray silk, still warm from his throat, and it smelled like him.

I tugged.

The knot held, but gave a little.

"Tighter," I said.

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