They Called Me Barren. They Picked the Wrong Wife novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: A Name on Paper

He came at nine that night in a dark gray Audi, and he parked it crooked in front of Bev's house.

The lawyer from Columbus was forty, with a good coat and a bad haircut.

He stood on Bev's porch for a full minute before he knocked.

Bev opened the door and looked him up and down.

"You're the one," she said.

"I'm here to see Courtney."

"She doesn't have to see you."

"She's seeing him," Courtney said, from the hallway behind us.

She had put on the cream sweater again.

I understood why.

It was the sweater she had worn to make her lie, and she wanted to be wearing it when she stopped.

We sat in Bev's kitchen under the hanging light, Courtney across from the lawyer, and Bev and I at the ends of the table.

Callum stayed on the porch in the cold.

"I saw the video," the lawyer said. He did not look at the belly. "Somebody in my office sent it. You, saying the baby wasn't Neil's."

"The baby is yours."

"I know." He put both hands flat on the table. "I knew in October. I stopped answering because I didn't know what to say."

"You could have said anything," Courtney said. "I'd have taken a bad answer. I couldn't take nothing."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not going to cry in front of you."

"You can if you want to."

"I don't want to." She sat up straighter. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm not asking you to leave your wife. I don't want you. I want the baby to have your name on the birth certificate and a check every month until she's eighteen."

"She?"

"It's a girl."

He closed his eyes.

"Does your wife know?" Bev asked.

"She will by tomorrow." He opened his eyes. "I'm telling her tonight, when I get home. I should have told her in October."

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