She Left With His Secret Child And Built Her Own Throne novel · Chapter 18 of 32

Chapter 18: The Rent

At midnight someone knocked on the door of my hotel suite, three times, very softly.

Rory was asleep in the bedroom with Ansel's mother on the cot beside him.

I looked through the peephole.

Daphne stood in the hall in a wet raincoat with her bob plastered to her cheeks and a folder against her chest.

I opened the door the width of the chain.

"Go away," I said.

"Please. Two minutes."

"You had three years."

"I know." Her voice cracked. "I'm not here for me. I'm here because you were right this morning, and I have been wanting to say so for a long time."

"Right about what?"

"I was told something," she said. "Today I started to say it, and I couldn't, and she was looking at me."

"Who was looking at you?"

She held up the folder.

"I'll tell you in the hall if you won't let me in. I'll tell you on my knees."

I took the chain off.

She sat on the very edge of the sofa, and I stayed standing by the door with my arms folded.

She opened the folder and laid out pages on the coffee table, one by one.

They were bank statements. Eleven of them.

Each one had a transfer circled in pen. Each was for the same amount, on the first of the month, from an account I did not recognize.

"Cordelia paid my rent," Daphne said. "Eleven months. My lease ended in March, and my boyfriend left, and she found me crying in a coffee shop near her office."

"Cordelia found you."

"She said Lachlan's wife had a big heart and a spare room. She said she'd cover whatever I needed until I was on my feet, and I wasn't to mention it to anyone, because you'd be embarrassed to be paying me."

"I didn't have to pay you anything. You lived in my house."

"I know. She made sure I had money, so I'd stay." She pressed her palms together. "She asked me questions, Imogen. For months. Who called you. When you went out. Where. I thought she was worried about you."

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