Exiled for Saying No, I Came Back and Took the Boss's Chair novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Seven Fishes
On Christmas Eve the Costigans came in by the front door.
Nonna stood in the hall at six o'clock with her hands folded on her black apron.
She watched Tiernan climb the porch steps one at a time.
He stopped on the mat with the blackthorn cane planted between his shoes.
Behind him stood Fergal with a bottle of wine, and Ronan with a covered pan of baccalà from the Pit's own oven.
"Tiernan," Nonna said.
"Signora."
Nobody had called her anything but Nonna in my hearing since I came home.
"Forty years you have walked past my door," she said.
"Thirty-nine."
"Wipe your feet."
He wiped his feet.
He wiped them slowly on the mat, one and then the other, and Nonna waited with her face perfectly straight until he had finished.
Then she stepped aside.
I stood at the end of the hall in my mother's good green dress.
Nonna had let it out at the waist with her own hands.
The old man came down the hall on his cane and stopped in front of me.
"Your father's chair is empty," he said, and nodded at the kitchen.
"He would want it that way."
I wanted to tell him it was the only chair in the house I had ever wanted to fill.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Exiled for Saying No, I Came Back and Took the Boss's Chair are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
← Chapter 16 · All chapters · Chapter 18 →
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