Chapter 11: The Gag

"I have never been in a courtroom with you," Patrick said again.

He stood between my knees with his shirt hanging open and my blouse on the floor.

I should have been furious. Instead I felt the room tilt.

"You were there," I said.

"Back row, left side, aisle seat. You wore a grey coat and you never took it off."

"Natalie, look at me."

I looked.

His face was steady, and his dark eyes were nothing but worried.

"Tell me what you mean," he said. "All of it."

So I told him.

I told him in the cold archive with my back against the shelving and his jacket around my shoulders.

I said it fast and flat.

The lobby, the latte, the jury, the cot in the prison infirmary, the husband who never claimed my body.

I told him my daughter had called Annie Mom.

When I finished, he had not moved or interrupted once.

I waited for him to laugh, or to take a careful step back and ask if I had slept.

He did neither.

"All right," he said.

"All right?"

"I believe you."

"You don't have to."

"I know." He said it quietly. "I'm going to tell you something, and it's going to sound like an excuse."

"Go ahead."

"Your father's trust has a gag. I told you that."

He rubbed his jaw.

"I can't speak against Desmond until you ask in your own words."

"I know."

"Until you ask, I'm silent. In the life you remember, did you ever ask?"

I thought about it.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Reborn to Destroy My Husband's Crying Mistress from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.