I Don't Want Your Love Out of Pity novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: Priscilla Sits Down

I opened the door on the chain, and I left the chain on.

"Leandra," Priscilla said, and held up the tin. "I know it's early. I couldn't sit in my hotel another minute."

"Conal told me not to let anyone in."

"Conal tells everyone a great many things."

She said it kindly, with a small tired smile, and she did not try to push the door.

Across the hall, Odette's door was open an inch.

I could hear her breathing.

I thought about what Conal had written on the pillow.

Then I thought about the man in the sedan, and the playground, and a note that had decided for me while I slept.

I took the chain off.

"Odette's door stays open," I said. "And you sit where she can see you."

"That's fair."

She sat on the edge of the couch with her knees together and her cream coat folded over her arm.

She put the tin on the table and did not open it.

"I came to tell you something I should have told you five years ago," she said. "You can throw me out afterward."

"Go on."

"I never wanted him."

I waited.

"I'm not saying it to hurt you. I've been engaged to a man who looks through me for five years, Leandra. Do you think I enjoyed it?"

"You wore the ring."

"Conal put the ring on my hand because my father stood there and watched him do it." She turned it on her finger. "My father holds the note on the Sweetgrass."

"Conal's father borrowed against the land," she went on. "My father bought the debt."

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