He Demanded I Deny His Daughter, So I Walked Away novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Locked Wing

Adelaide lifted her cup and saucer off the marble as if nothing had happened.

"Rhett, dear, see Rochelle out," she said. "And put on a clean shirt. The board's driver comes at ten."

She left through the pantry door.

I listened to her heels go up the back stairs, even and unhurried, until a door closed somewhere above us.

Rhett and I stood on either side of the island.

The tea she had poured was still steaming.

"Lila asked me," he said. "The week before she died. She said, bring Rochelle into the house, let her love Poppy, and tell her when Poppy's old enough to understand."

"You said yes."

"I said yes. Then Lila died, and Mom said, not yet. Then not yet turned into four years."

"You watched me wash her hair every Sunday for four years."

"I know."

"You knew every single time."

"Yes."

He didn't look away, which surprised me.

"I told myself the wedding would make it safe," he said. "That once you were my wife, Mom couldn't touch you."

"And then you handed me a page saying I was never her mother."

"Mom said the page was a formality. That you'd sign it because you loved us." He swallowed. "I knew you wouldn't. I let them put it on the table anyway."

"In front of a hundred and forty people."

"In front of a hundred and forty people."

I had wanted him to argue.

It would have been easier to hate him if he had argued.

"I'm not going to forgive you," I said.

"I'm not asking you to."

"You are. You've been asking since you said you could explain."

His mouth opened and shut.

Then he put his hand in his shirt pocket and took out a sheet of paper folded in four.

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