He Chose Her So I Left Carrying His Heir novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Two Million Dollars

Odette offers Melanie two million for the baby on the stoop in front of the neighbours. Melanie refuses. By afternoon her work accounts are dead and an eviction notice is taped to Trudy's door.

The old woman did not hurry.

Cameron walked around the corner to his own car, and the black car stayed where it was.

The driver got out and opened the back door.

Odette Draycott crossed the sidewalk with her cane tapping every second step, though she never put any weight on it.

It was a quarter to seven and Dorrance Street was waking up.

A man was carrying his daughter's backpack down the steps of the house next door.

The woman from number twelve stood at her window with a coffee mug.

Odette stopped at the bottom of Trudy's stoop and looked up at me.

"Miss Whitacre," she said. "I won't come in. I've seen the inside of enough boarding houses."

"Then say it where you are," I said.

Trudy came out and stood beside me with her arms folded.

"My grandson doesn't know I'm here," Odette said. "He will be told what I decide he should be told."

"What do you want?"

"I want what's mine." She said it plainly. "You are carrying a Draycott. You have no insurance, no savings, and no family. You work from a bedroom."

"I have a job."

"You have a laptop."

She opened her handbag and took out a folded paper.

"Two million dollars, paid in full, the day you sign. A house of your choosing outside this state. The best doctors in Pittsburgh, at my Pavilion. And when the child is born, it goes home with Cameron and Celia, where it belongs."

The man with the backpack had stopped on his steps.

Behind him a door opened, and then another.

"I'll give you a minute to think," Odette said.

I looked at the paper in her gloved hand.

Then I looked at the street, and at the people who were pretending not to listen.

"Say it again," I said. "Louder."

Her eyes narrowed.

"The people on this street can't hear you, and I want them to. You're offering me two million dollars for my baby."

"The child is a Draycott."

"The child is mine."

"Your name is on nothing," Odette said. "Not a lease, not a bank account, not a photograph. My grandson kept you in a back room. I'm offering you a better one."

That landed.

I felt it in my chest, and she saw that I felt it.

I put my hand flat on my stomach where she could see it.

"No," I said. "Not for two million. Not for twenty."

"You are a foolish girl."

"Maybe."

"Cameron does not get to choose twice," said Odette. "Celia's father holds the vote that keeps my grandson in his chair. He has chosen. When this is over you will be one more mistake I have to tidy up."

"Mrs. Draycott," said Trudy.

Odette looked at her.

"You're standing on my sidewalk," Trudy said. "Get off it."

For a moment I thought she might say something else.

Instead she put the paper back into her bag and walked to her car without once leaning on her cane.

The driver closed the door, and the black car slid out of Dorrance Street.

Somebody on the next stoop started clapping, and then stopped, because Trudy was already glaring at them.

"Inside," she said to me.

I sat at her kitchen table with the cold oatmeal in front of me and tried to hold my hands still.

At eight o'clock my phone buzzed.

It was the transcription platform that had given me steady work for three years.

Your account has been suspended pending review of a policy violation.

I read it twice.

I opened my other platform, the one I used for backup.

Same message.

I called, and a recording told me that all support lines were closed.

By ten, the third and last account was gone.

"That's quick," Trudy said.

She had been watching me from the stove.

"That's one phone call from a woman with a lot of friends," I said.

"That's what I figured."

We sat there with the radio on low.

At noon someone knocked on the front door again, and Trudy went with the spoon still in her hand.

It was a man in a gray raincoat with a clipboard.

He didn't ask to come in.

He taped an envelope to the door at eye level, pressed the corners flat with his thumb, and left without a word.

Trudy pulled it down and read it standing in the hall.

She read it to the end, and then she handed it to me.

At the top was the logo of Draycott Properties.

The bank had sold her mortgage to Draycott Properties in September.

Now they were calling in the whole balance, due in thirty days.

At the bottom, in a separate paragraph, someone had added a line: The occupant listed as T. Whitacre is to vacate the premises by Friday.

I looked up.

Trudy had her glasses off, and her eyes were wet.

"Pack a bag," she said.

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