The One He Never Held novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Ten Weeks

Damian follows Jo to her brother's café and refuses to sign anything. Hailey arrives soaked and says the baby isn't his.

I looked at his hand around my wrist.

Four years, and I had never once felt how warm it was.

"Let go, Damian," I said.

He let go at once. Then he curled his fingers into his palm.

"You sat there," I said. "You looked at a tablecloth while your chairman toasted your family."

"Lionel was hosting. If I said it in front of the board, I'd lose the board vote next month."

"So you chose the vote."

"I chose a minute." His voice cracked on it. "I wanted one minute to think. Then you took off the ring."

The front door opened behind him and Lucille called his name.

I did not wait to hear what came after it.

I walked to the end of the drive and flagged a taxi on the street.

Damian stood in the gravel and watched me go.

Kettle & Page was my brother's café, on a corner with a big rain-streaked window and eleven mismatched tables.

At three on a Sunday it was half full of people with laptops and library books.

Tim was behind the counter in his apron. He looked up when the bell rang and stopped with a milk jug in his hand.

"Where's your ring?"

"On Lucille's table," I said. "Can I have the flat key?"

He put the jug down and came around the counter without another word.

He hugged me hard enough to lift my feet off the floor. Two students at the next table pretended to read.

"I'll make tea," he said into my hair. "You don't have to say it yet."

I was holding the cup when the bell rang again.

Damian stood in the doorway. His coat was dark with rain and his hair was plastered to his forehead.

Tim put himself between us with a dish towel in his fist.

"You've got a lot of nerve."

"I'm not here to fight you, Tim," Damian said. "I'm here for her."

"Tim," I said. "Let him talk. Everyone is already listening."

The whole café had gone quiet. Even the espresso machine had stopped hissing.

Damian took three steps toward my table and no more.

"I won't sign anything," he said.

"I haven't asked you to."

"You will. Your terms said the marriage ends when Hailey is ready." He swallowed. "Lionel just told two board members and their wives she's ready. So you'll ask. And I won't sign."

"Those were your terms, Damian. Not mine."

"I know."

"Then say the baby's yours. That's what everyone at that table needs from you. Say it and keep the family."

"I won't say it, because it isn't." He looked right at me. "Not to the board, not to my mother, not to you."

"Then why did you stay silent?"

"Lionel taught me never to answer him at his own table," he said. "I've done what he said since I was nineteen. I couldn't make my mouth stop."

That was the first time I had ever heard him say he couldn't do something.

I did not write it down. I did not trust my hand.

"I'll say it anywhere you want," he said. "In this room. Right now."

"Not in my brother's café."

"Then tell me where."

"Go home, Damian."

"That isn't home without you in it."

Tim made a sound in his throat like a kettle.

I stood up and put my cup on the counter.

"Please leave," I said. "I'll text you when I know what I'm doing."

He stood there a long moment. Then he nodded and went out into the rain.

I thought he'd get into his car.

He crossed the street and stopped under the awning of the shuttered pharmacy, his hands in his pockets and his face turned toward our window.

"He's still there," Tim muttered, wiping the same table for the fourth time.

"I see him."

I took out the black notebook and opened it to a clean page. I wrote the date and nothing else.

The street lamps came on. The rain kept falling, and he did not move.

At six the bell over the door rang hard.

Hailey stood on the mat in a pink sweater turned dark with water. Her mascara had run down to her chin.

She had walked from somewhere. Her shoes were in her hand.

"Jo," she said. "Oh God, Jo, I'm so sorry."

"Hailey, sit down. You'll catch cold."

She didn't sit. She grabbed my sleeve with both hands and held on.

"It isn't his," she whispered. "It was never his. Please, Jo. Daddy can never know whose it is."

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