Never Yours Again novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Office on the Sixth Floor

Ellis's POV

I watched them from the lobby, through the glass, with my coat half on.

I had taken the next elevator down, though I'd promised her I wouldn't follow.

Lucy stood at the open door of Constance's car with the gray jacket held together at her throat.

I couldn't hear anything.

I saw her lean down and say something short.

I saw Constance say something long.

Then Lucy straightened up, and her whole face had changed.

She shut the car door herself, hard enough that the driver flinched.

She walked away down the block without looking at my building, and she raised her hand for a cab.

One came in under a minute.

I stayed where I was, behind the glass, and let her go.

I had told her I would, and I meant it, and it was the worst thing I had ever done on purpose.

Rhett was at the corner, kicking at a drain with his good shoes.

Constance had sent him off, I realized, the way she used to send him from the table when he was nine.

The car's rear window slid down.

"Ellis," said Constance. "Come here."

I could have gone back upstairs.

I went out into the cold and bent to the window, and she opened the door beside her.

"Get in. I'm not going to shout through glass."

I got in.

The car smelled of leather and lilies, as it always had.

"I've just told Miss Tannen that I knew," she said. "The week of the gala, Rhett came home and told me what he'd done. He thought it was funny."

"Did you?"

"I thought it was useful."

She said it without shame.

"She was twenty-two and a junior planner. She would have followed him anywhere. I thought it would make him gentler, to be loved like that."

"It made him lazy."

"Yes. I noticed that by the second year."

I looked at her hands.

They were folded on her bag, with pearls on the wrist.

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