Divorced for Being Barren, I Came Back Pregnant by His Rival novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: What Everyone Knew
Eliot took the gold-edged card out of August's hand and read the blue ink twice.
*I've kept your teacup.*
Then he walked down the corridor to the study and switched on the lamp with the green shade.
The photograph hung where it had hung for three weeks of his living here.
August stood in the doorway in his robe, with his wedding ring still new on his hand.
"You clapped," Eliot said.
He did not turn around.
"I saw it the first night, at two in the morning, when I went for water. I've looked at it every day since."
"Eliot."
"Everyone in the industry knew that paper was too good for Grayson. You were in the second row. You knew better than anyone."
"Yes."
"Then why are your hands together?"
August came into the room and stopped an arm's length away.
He did not reach for him.
"I read the filing that night," he said. "The first claim had your thesis in a footnote on page forty. Standish, E. I looked at that line for an hour."
"And?"
"And I closed the file."
Eliot turned.
He had expected an excuse, and a reason, and a long careful speech from a man who read every page.
What he got was a flat voice, and gray eyes that did not leave his face.
"I had a board that thought I was a bad bet. Auchincloss's lawyers were better than mine. I told myself I'd look into it next quarter." August's jaw moved. "I never did. I hung that photograph so I would see my own hands."
"For four years."
"For four years."
"You let them put it in my tea."
"I didn't know about the tea."
"You didn't know about me!" Eliot's voice cracked off the bookshelves. "That's the point. You didn't ask who E. Standish was. Nobody asked. A man in a lab was a footnote, and you went home and had dinner."
August took it.
He stood there and took it with his hands open at his sides.
"Yes," he said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Divorced for Being Barren, I Came Back Pregnant by His Rival are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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