After My Heart Died, The Don Begged Crying at My Feet novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Dawn on the Porch

Dominic arrives at Fitz Doyle's door at dawn and refuses to sign anything; Gia posts a photo from inside Anneliese's own kitchen.

I slept in the spare room at Fitz Doyle's house, in the bed I had used as a girl whenever my father was away.

I didn't cry.

I lay on my back and listened to the foghorns and waited for something to hurt.

Nothing did.

At six in the morning, a car stopped outside, and a door shut hard.

Fitz was already in the hallway in his undershirt, holding his cap in one hand.

"He's on the porch," he said. "You don't have to go out."

"I'm going out."

"Then I'm standing behind you."

Dominic stood on the top step with no coat on.

His suit from the night before was creased, and his tie was gone, and he held something small in his closed fist.

He had fished my ring out of the champagne.

"Annie," he said. "Come home."

"I'm not going home."

"It was a party. The captains wanted a night out. Gia offered the club and I went because it would have been rude to say no."

"You were dancing with her."

"It was one song."

"She posted it for everyone to see, with you holding her in front of your whole crew."

He opened his mouth and shut it again.

I took a breath and asked the only question that mattered.

"Have you slept with her?"

"No."

He said it quickly.

Then he looked at the floorboards, and he kept looking at them.

I had been married to him for five years, and I knew what he did with his eyes when he told me the truth.

He looked straight at me.

"All right," I said.

"Anneliese, I swear to you."

"Look at me and swear it."

He didn't.

Fitz shifted his weight behind me and said nothing.

"Here is what happens," I said. "I'm having papers drawn up. You will sign them by Friday."

"I can't sign them."

"You can't?"

"You don't understand what happens when you file."

"Then explain it to me."

He stood there with my ring in his hand.

Fog was coming off the bay and settling on his shoulders.

He could close a port with one phone call, and he had no idea what to say next.

"I can't tell you that."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Can't. Not yet."

"Dominic."

"If you want to hate me, hate me. I earned it. But don't file this week. Give me this week."

"I gave you five years."

His jaw moved.

"You gave me a closed door and a text that said don't wait up. That's what I got. Sign by Friday."

I turned and looked at Fitz.

He held his cap against his chest, and his eyes were wet.

"Say it, son," he told Dominic quietly. "She'll find out one way or the other."

"Not like this," Dominic said.

"Find out what?" I said.

Neither of them answered me.

Dominic held out the ring.

I looked at it, and I did not take it.

"Put it somewhere safe," I said. "I don't want to see it again."

He set it on the porch rail, very gently, and went down the steps without it.

I watched his car pull away.

Fitz put a mug of tea in my hands and I sat down at his kitchen table.

"What did he mean?" I asked. "What happens when I file?"

"Eat something first, lass."

"Fitz."

"It's not mine to tell you. I gave your father my word."

My father had been dead six years.

I had stopped expecting him to be mentioned in the middle of a fight about my marriage.

I was still holding the tea when my phone buzzed on the table.

It was Gia's story again, posted at 7:02.

A mug of coffee sat on a counter with blue tile behind it.

A woman's hand was holding the handle, and the sleeve falling back from her wrist was lavender silk.

The caption said: "Good morning."

I knew that sleeve.

Dominic had bought me that robe in Capri on our second anniversary.

I knew the cracked ceramic sugar jar next to the mug, too, because I had dropped it myself last spring and glued the handle back on.

It was my kitchen.

Gia was standing in my kitchen, in my robe, drinking out of my mug.

I put down the tea.

"Get your keys," I told Fitz.

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