Chapter 6: Tell Me to Stop

Portia walked out with the bell jingling behind her.

I sat there with my pen on the title page of somebody's book.

"Hazel?" Christian said. "You all right?"

"Fine."

I signed forty-three books.

I don't remember a single name I wrote.

In the car, I called Henrik.

Straight to voicemail.

I texted him.

"Whatever she offered you, don't. Please."

The message said delivered.

It never said read.

I called Pippa next, while Christian was inside the bakery again buying bread.

"He's not picking up for me either," Pippa said. "His roommate says he came home with a new jacket. A leather one. With the tags."

"Portia bought him."

"I'll kill him. I'll actually kill him. I'll use my brow pencil."

"Pip, if Henrik tells people it's real, he can say anything. Anything he wants."

"Then tell Christian it's fake. Right now. Today."

The car door opened.

Christian got in with a warm loaf of bread in a paper bag and set it on my lap.

"Sourdough," he said. "You like the end piece."

I hung up.

I didn't tell him.

I told myself it was because I still wanted the divorce.

That night a storm came in off the river.

By nine the rain was hitting the windows sideways.

At ten past, the lights went out on the whole block.

I was in the kitchen, and I heard Christian come down the stairs in the dark.

He found candles in a drawer I didn't know we had.

He lit four of them and set them on the island.

"You know where the candles are," I said.

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