Chapter 5: The Inspector

The real-estate agent came Thursday, and I sent her away with a copy of the marriage certificate and a plate of the bus driver's lasagna.

The inspector came Friday, forty-five minutes early.

I knew it was her the moment I saw the clipboard through the front window.

She was a small woman in a beige raincoat, and she did not knock so much as announce herself with her knuckles.

"Household verification," she said when I opened the door.

"We're expected at ten," I said.

"I'm early. Is your husband home?"

I could hear the shower running upstairs, and I knew exactly what she was going to find.

"He's upstairs," I said.

"Please, come in."

She stepped into the hall.

I watched her take in the single pair of work boots and the single coat on the hook.

"Two bedrooms occupied?" she asked.

"One of them is mine," I said, and bit my tongue too late.

Her pen stopped.

Amory came down the stairs in a gray T-shirt and jeans, barefoot, his silver hair dripping onto his collar.

He took in the clipboard and the raincoat in one look and crossed the hall without hurrying.

"Good morning," he said.

He put his arm around my waist.

"Amory Bexley. Sorry about the hair, my wife keeps the hot water to herself."

"I do not," I said.

"She's the one who made me move into her father's old room," he added, smiling.

My mouth fell open.

"We're old-fashioned," Amory told the inspector, with a straight face.

"The bed's too small for the two of us, and I thrash."

I stepped on his foot.

He did not so much as flinch.

The inspector wrote something down.

"Mr. Bexley, what does your wife take in her coffee?"

"Nothing. She says milk is a coward's drink."

"And what does your husband take in his?"

"He drinks my grandmother's chicory, which is a crime," I said, "and he finishes the pot before I'm up."

"Where does he keep his razor?"

"Left side of the sink," I said, "next to my toothbrush, which he borrowed once and swore he didn't."

I had never been so frightened by how easy it was.

She walked every room.

She opened the refrigerator, where there were two half-eaten dinners from the neighbors.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Billionaire Husband Signed Away My Street from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.