He Made Her His Wife for Seven Days. I Made Him My Ex. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Nothing Owed

Nathaniel Sterne gives her a room across the street and asks for nothing; at 1 a.m. Harrison arrives and tells her the staff are betting she is back by Day 3.

"I can't take your money," I told Nathaniel Sterne on the curb. "I can't even take your cab ride."

"You already did." He shut the cab door and the driver pulled away. "It's paid for. You're standing in the rain with a suitcase."

"Then I'll pay you back."

"Fine. Pay me back tomorrow."

His hotel was across Boylston from the Holloway Grand.

The Sterne had a smaller lobby, and no chandelier, only warm wood and a fire going behind glass.

The night clerk straightened up when she saw him.

"Eleven-oh-four is free, Mr. Sterne," she said.

"Put Mrs. Holloway in it."

"Callister," I said. "My name is Sylvie Callister. I kept it."

"Then put Ms. Callister in it."

In the elevator I watched the numbers climb and did not look at him.

"You said you waited four years," I said. "For me."

"For one of you. A Holloway." He kept his eyes on the doors. "Helen cut me out of a deal on this block when I was thirty-one. Since then I've watched people go through that door, and the good ones always leave."

"That's not an answer about me."

"It's the only one I've got tonight."

Room 1104 had a bed, a lamp, and a window that looked straight across the street into the Holloway Grand's ballroom.

The party was still going.

I could see the chandeliers.

"A room," Nathaniel said from the doorway. "Nothing owed. Breakfast is on the house. If you want to leave, the key stays in the lock."

"Why would you do this?"

"Because you dropped a ring in a champagne glass in front of three hundred people." He almost smiled. "I'd like to see what you do next."

He left.

I sat on the edge of the bed in my wet coat.

My left hand looked wrong without the ring.

I called Dee.

She picked up on the first ring, and I could hear the bakery's mixer going behind her.

"Tell me you left him," she said. "Tell me, because I saw the video. It's on every phone in the kitchen."

"I left him."

"I'm coming to get you."

"Stay with the dough. I'll be at the shop at five."

"Sylvie." Her voice went small. "Are you okay?"

"No," I said. "I'm furious. It's better."

I hung up and stared at the window.

At one in the morning there was a knock.

Not a polite one.

I opened the door on the chain.

Harrison stood in the hall with his tie loose and his tuxedo jacket over one shoulder.

Behind him, at the end of the corridor, I could see his mother's black car through the window, parked at the curb.

"Open the door, Em."

"How did you find me?"

"Mom's driver saw you get into a stranger's cab." He laughed, short. "Do you know what you look like? You look like you're having an affair."

"I'm in a hotel room. Alone."

"In Sterne's hotel. Of all of them." He put his palm flat on the door. "Fine. You made your point. Come home."

"I'm not coming home."

"Sylvie, it's seven days." He said it slowly. "A week. It's for a dying man. And you stood there in front of everyone and made me look like a fool."

"You stood up in front of everyone and gave my name away."

"You always get like this about Gretchen." His voice softened. It was the voice he used when he wanted something. "And I like it. It shows you love me. You know that I only do it because you're the one who matters."

I looked at his face.

I had been looking at that face for four years, trying to see where the kindness ended.

I took the chain off, and I opened the door to its full width.

"Take your hand off my door," I said.

He did.

"I'm filing before the week is over," I said. "You'll have the papers on Day 7. In person."

He laughed again, longer.

"You're not serious."

"Watch me."

His eyes drifted past me to the empty room, the neat bed, the suitcase unopened by the window.

"You can't even pay for a cab," he said. "Your cards are shut off. Where are you going to go, Em?"

"Somewhere you didn't buy."

"Mom says you'll be home by Day 3." He shrugged, and he was almost fond. "Table fourteen has money on Day 2. Dee wouldn't put in a dollar. She still believes in you."

My stomach turned over.

"The staff are betting on me."

"It's a joke." He winked. "I put fifty on Day 3 myself."

Then he turned and walked down the corridor, whistling, to his mother's car.

I shut the door and locked it.

For a long time I stood with my forehead against the wood.

Then I took out my phone and opened a blank note and typed: Day 1.

Under it I wrote: Papers.

Under that: Who bet on me?

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