He Deceived Me, So I Destroyed His Family's Legacy novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Marigold

Poppy's note and Jonas's six years of Sundays, then Rowan opens her door at night and Annabel slaps him, and he says the dark room was Marissa's idea.

I unfolded the paper boat with hands that would not stay steady.

The handwriting was Poppy's, small and slanted and uphill.

*Annie. Lawson told me you left and that you were done with us. I said you would never do that. Jonas is ours. Marigold. P.*

I read it four times.

Marigold was the word we had used since I was ten and she was two.

It meant, I'm fine, don't panic, keep pretending.

I pressed the paper against my mouth until I could breathe through my nose.

She was alive.

She had not believed him.

For six months I had been told she was too frail for visitors, and I had told myself it was kindness.

Now I knew the kindness had been a lock.

At ten, the door opened.

Jonas came in to take the tray, and he did not close the door behind him.

"Ma'am," he said.

I held up the paper boat.

"You carried this."

He did not lie.

"Every Sunday for six years," he said quietly. "Your father asked me to keep seeing her. After he died, nobody told me to stop."

"Lawson doesn't know?"

"Mr. Draper thinks I visit her on his orders, to check on the clinic," Jonas said. "That's what I've let him think."

I studied his face.

It was a plain, tired face with a scar through one eyebrow, and I had seen it every day for three years without once looking at it.

"You stood in the hall tonight," I said, "and you let him say all of it."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Why?"

"Because if I'd moved, I would have been fired in front of the staff, and I would never have gotten back into this house," he said. "I can't give you a better answer than that tonight."

It was not a good enough answer, and it was an honest one.

I said nothing.

"Do you want to write back?" he asked.

I took a pen from the nightstand and tore a strip from the top of the room-service menu.

*Marigold. Stay where you are. I'm coming. T.*

I folded it small and put it in his palm.

His hand closed over it, and he nodded once and took the tray.

"I'll be in the chair outside your door all night," he said. "Whatever you hear, stay in the room."

I did not ask what he meant.

At two in the morning I heard the key.

It was not Jonas's key.

I was already sitting up, and I had put a heavy glass lamp within reach of my hand.

The door swung inward.

Rowan stood in the light from the hall, shirt open, tie gone, smelling of whiskey and my husband's cologne.

"Lawson said I'm not to disturb you tonight," he said, smiling. "He didn't say anything about checking on my future niece."

"Get out," I said.

"Come on, Annabel. We both know how this goes."

A hand came down on the door frame above his head.

Jonas was behind him in the hall, and he did not say a word.

He didn't pull Rowan back.

He simply stayed where he was and let Rowan see that the whole doorway was now full of him.

Then I understood that he was leaving the choice to me.

I got out of bed.

I crossed the room barefoot and slapped Rowan across the face with everything I had.

The sound cracked through the quiet house.

His head turned with it.

When he looked back, his lip was split.

The grin was gone.

"That was for the night I thought it was my husband," I said. "I'm keeping the rest in reserve."

Rowan touched his mouth and looked at the blood on his thumb.

"You've got a hand on you," he said. He sounded almost impressed.

"Out, sir," Jonas said.

"You're a dog, Rhinelander," Rowan said without heat. "You know that? Lawson's dog."

"Yes, sir," Jonas said. "Out."

Rowan laughed under his breath, and then he stopped, because he had seen my face.

I did not look afraid.

I had spent three years being afraid of the wrong person.

"You think this is Lawson's plan," Rowan said softly.

"I know it is," I said.

"He wanted a wife who didn't ask questions, sure," Rowan said. "But the dark room wasn't his. It was Marissa's."

"She made the calendar, and I only showed up on the nights she said."

"She chose the first night. She picked what cologne. She told me when to stay quiet and when to say your name."

"Ask her sometime which nights she watched."

Jonas's hand shut on Rowan's collar.

"That's enough," he said, and walked him down the hall.

I stood in the open doorway until I could no longer hear them.

Then I went back to the bed and sat on the edge.

I had been trying to understand how a man could do this to his wife.

I had assumed the answer was Lawson.

It was a woman in pale pink who had brought me ginger tea that morning and called me dear.

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