My Marriage Was Their Bet novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Why He Waited

Bancroft let me go to Fenner Street the next evening.

"Take the car," he said, on his way out to a dinner with the friends.

"Do the tasting for the gala. I want my wife's food on that table."

He was smiling again, and I knew why.

He wanted me to run to Samson, so he could count the minutes.

His driver parked at the curb outside the catering kitchen and settled in with a newspaper.

I walked in the front door, past the empty tables, and straight through to the back.

Bea was waiting by the cold room with her coat on.

"I'm going upstairs," she said. "I'm turning the radio up. Nobody is in this kitchen but you."

"Bea."

"Alley door's unlocked." She kissed my cheek. "Don't break my mixer."

She went up the back stairs.

I stood in the quiet kitchen with the steel tables shining under one light.

The alley door opened, and Samson came in.

He stopped just inside it and did not come closer.

"Bancroft's driver is out front," I said.

"I know. I walked around the block."

"He has a clip of your plate."

"I know that too."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because you asked me to come."

I had texted him from the burner that afternoon: Bea's kitchen, after nine.

I looked at him across the room, a tall man in a dark coat with gray at his temples.

He had stood in my front hall ten times and left before dessert.

"Why did you wait?" I said.

He didn't answer right away.

"After the slap I thought, if I push again, she goes back to him harder," he said.

"So I waited for you to give me a reason to say it. You never did."

He shook his head.

"Every year I stood in the hall with a new girl and a new plan, and every year you carried the cake out smiling."

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