Divorced, Now Watch Me Rise novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Dress

"What clause did Vera mean?" I asked, the next morning, over coffee I could not drink.

Brogan put down his paper.

"I'll answer that after the gala."

"You told me you didn't know what she meant."

"I told you that, and it was a lie. I broke term three at your own table." He met my eyes. "Ask me again on Saturday night and I will tell you all of it. I'm asking you to wait."

"Why?"

"Because if I say it now, you will do something brave, and it will get you hurt."

I should have been angrier.

But he had said it flat, without excuses, and he had told me plainly that he'd lied.

Nobody in the Reeve house had ever done that.

"Saturday," I said. "Not a day after."

"Not a day after."

The dress was my idea.

I wouldn't walk into Vera's gala wearing something he had picked, or something Vera could say I'd stolen.

Brogan's tailor kept a shop on Oak Street, behind a green door with no sign, and she looked me over once with pins in her mouth.

"What do you want to say?" she asked.

"That I'm not hiding."

She brought out a dress in a deep green silk.

It had a bare back and a neckline that would not stay polite, and she held it up without a word.

"I'll pay for it," I said. "I'll pay it back from the first money I earn."

"Mr. Buckley has already told me about the paper you wrote," the tailor said, and her mouth twitched. "He said you'd say that."

"Did he tell you to charge it?"

"He said to write it down, and to let you set the date."

I took the dress into the fitting room, and I put it on.

← Chapter 8 · All chapters · Chapter 10 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend