My Husband Used My Fortune to Support His Mistress novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Joan's Choice

Joan had made soup again.

It sat on the back burner of her Queens stove in the same dented pot, and the whole kitchen smelled of onion and thyme.

I put my father's trust cheque on her table next to the sugar bowl.

It was made out to Joan Danner, for thirty-one million dollars.

I had worked the number out with Eli over two nights.

It was the value of the Danner hotels as they stood twelve years ago, plus every year of what they would have earned since.

Joan looked at it and did not touch it.

"That's a lot of zeros," she said.

"It's what he took from you."

"It's what you think he took." She ladled soup into a bowl and set it in front of me. "Eat first."

"Joan."

"Eat, honey. I won't discuss money with an empty stomach at my table."

I ate.

It was good soup, and I hated how much that helped.

She sat across from me and folded her hands.

"I can't take it," she said.

My spoon stopped.

"It isn't enough?"

"It's too much. And it's the wrong kind."

She tapped the cheque with one finger and slid it back toward me an inch.

"You want to pay a debt by handing me paper in my own kitchen, with nobody watching. Your father did his in a back room with a lawyer. I won't take it that way."

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