I Didn't Marry Him, I Married The One He Hated novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Lemon Cake

Shelby was in the back booth of the lemon cake place, with her hair down and a scarf tied over it.

She had ordered two slices.

She hadn't touched hers.

I slid in across from her and left my coat on.

"You've got ten minutes," she said. "He thinks I'm at the dentist."

"He told you to say it was Magnus at the table."

"He told me what to wear, and which hand to hold, and when to cry." She turned her fork over. "I said it, Linnea. I sat in that woman's dining room and told her it was Magnus, and I watched her face."

"Why?"

"Because if I'd said anything else, he'd have known I was going to turn." She looked at me for the first time. "He's not stupid. He's only afraid. It looks the same from the outside."

I waited.

"When I was in the hospital," she said, "the doctor held up a mirror. Nobody told me they were going to do it. I looked at my face and I thought, well, that's what you get for being the girl in the passenger seat."

"That isn't what you get."

"I know that now." Her voice shook. "I've been agreeing with him for eight years because the other way meant admitting I let him take my face and give me a ring for it."

"He gave you a ring to shut you up."

"He gave me a ring so a wife can't be made to testify." She laughed, short and bitter. "I looked it up on my phone. That's the whole reason. I've known the whole week."

I reached across the table and put my hand over hers.

She flinched.

Then she let me.

"What's he going to say at the gala?" I asked.

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