Billionaire's Match novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: New Terms

The old woman did not raise her cane. She only pointed it at the door.

"Not here," she said. "Both of you, and the boy. To my car."

Dalton stood, shaking.

Celia lifted Teddy onto her hip with her chin high and her face arranged again, and followed her husband out through the stunned ballroom.

At the exit, the old woman stopped beside Brittany.

She had pale eyes and a hard, careful mouth.

"You," she said. "I will send for you."

"I'll come," said Brittany.

The doors swung shut behind them, and the whole hall began to talk at once.

Elliot had her out the side entrance within a minute.

In the car, he said nothing for three streets, and then he stopped the car outside the estate gate and turned off the engine.

"You went down that aisle alone," he said.

"I know."

"You didn't know what the boy would say."

"I knew what he'd seen." She was shaking now, finally. "He's five. He tells the truth when he forgets he's been taught not to."

Elliot got out. He came around and opened her door, and when she stepped out, he pulled her against him in the dark under the pines.

He didn't kiss her.

He held her until the shaking stopped.

"I can't have you walking into things alone," he said into her hair.

"Then come with me."

"I will."

"Say it as a rule."

He laughed, low.

"Upstairs," he said. "I'll write it down."

In his bedroom she took the pen off the desk and a sheet from the drawer, and sat cross-legged on the bed in her black dress.

"New terms," she said. "One. No secrets. Anything either of us plans, the other hears first."

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