Ten Years to Win Her, Two Weeks to Leave Her novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Rule One

Nolan spent the day doing everything except thinking about what she had said in the mess hall.

He cleaned the dome mirror with Joan's mechanic.

He answered two emails from a grad student in Montana.

He read the symposium program four times, until the folds went soft.

At nine in the evening he gave up and went back to Cabin Nine, and the woodstove was lit.

Lydia sat cross-legged on the bed with her hair loose, a mug of tea beside her, a pencil behind her ear.

The wedding dress still hung on the closet door.

"My father's office left nine messages," she said. "I haven't answered one."

"Harold says he'll end your career if I make a scene in Portland."

"Harold says a lot of things."

"He can do it."

"I know he can."

"Then I'll skip Portland."

"No." She put the mug down. "You'll go. I'll stand next to you. If my father wants to end my career, he'll have to do it in front of four hundred astronomers."

He sat on the arm of the couch.

The stove ticked, and the whole cabin smelled of cedar.

"You said something in front of forty people this morning," Nolan said.

"I did."

"Was it a joke?"

"No."

"We agreed on terms."

"You agreed on terms."

She slid off the bed and crossed the floor in her bare feet.

She stopped in front of him, close enough that he had to look up.

For the first time in ten years she was the one standing over him, and he was sitting.

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