Second Choice Wife novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Guilt Money

Joelle drove up in her ancient hatchback at two in the afternoon.

She didn't knock.

She came through the front door with her cane in one hand and a folded paper in the other, and her red hair stuck out like she'd run her fingers through it for an hour.

Heath was at the foot of the stairs, still in the grey shirt, with a phone in his hand.

I was already coming down behind him.

"Joelle," I said.

"Not now, Naomi."

She walked right up to him.

She was a foot shorter, and she held the paper under his nose.

"Ten years," she said. "Rent, the surgery in Cleveland, the second surgery, the physical therapy, the tires on my hatchback. You paid my mother's property tax the year she got laid off. I thanked a man named Mr. Flynn at a bank in Dayton every Christmas. There is no Mr. Flynn."

Heath didn't say anything.

"There's no Mr. Flynn, is there?"

"No."

She threw the paper in his face.

It hit his chest and slid to the floor.

He didn't flinch.

"I turned down money from you once," Joelle said. "At eighteen, in a hospital bed, when your lawyer slid an envelope under my door. I told him to put it where the sun doesn't shine. And you kept sending it anyway, behind my back, for ten years, so I'd be living in your pocket without knowing it."

"Joelle," I said.

"Don't." She didn't look at me. "You married him. Two months I didn't speak to you, and I'm here, and I'm not even mad about that anymore, because I figured you were lonely. I didn't know he was paying me to forgive him."

"It wasn't to be forgiven," Heath said quietly.

"Then what was it?"

"It was the least I could do."

"The least." She laughed, and it cracked. "I'd like you to say it to my face, Heath. I want to hear it. Say it."

He lifted his eyes.

I'd seen my husband in a hundred rooms, and I had never seen him.

His hands hung open at his sides.

He looked as though he had stopped trying to defend himself.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For what happened to you. For all of it."

"That's it?"

"That's all I can say."

"Why can't you say more?"

His jaw worked.

He said nothing.

"Joelle, honey."

Bridget was on the stairs above us, one hand on the rail, the pink scarf trailing from her wrist.

"I'm so sorry for what you've been through. Truly. It was the worst night of all our lives."

Joelle turned her head.

She went very still.

It was a strange thing to watch.

She looked at Bridget the way you look at a word you know but can't place.

Then she shook it off.

"You stay out of this," she said, and went back to Heath. "I'm taking myself off your payroll. Don't send me another dime."

← Chapter 4 · All chapters · Chapter 6 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend