The Stranger I Married novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Rooftop

"Let go of my arm," I said.

"Not until you tell me you understand."

"I understand that you're hurting me."

Nolan's fingers opened.

He looked at his own hand as if it had made a mistake, and he put it in his coat pocket.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I'm under a lot of pressure.

Maya, listen.

The primary is in February.

Twelve thousand people will vote.

I cannot be the candidate whose fiancee is secretly married to the man who funds him."

"He doesn't fund you. His mother does."

"Same bank account."

"Then I'll file for the divorce," I said. "It will take a month. I'll be free by the wedding."

"You'll be free in a month," Nolan said, "and the story will be out in a day.

Do you know what the Tribune does with a headline like that? 'Candidate's Bride Wed Hotel Heir.' They'll say I'm a cuckold.

They'll say I'm a front."

"Is that what you're worried about?"

"Of course it is."

He said it simply, and that was the worst part.

He had not asked if I was all right.

He had not asked if I loved the man in Reno, or if the man in Reno loved me.

He had asked how it would look.

"I'll think about it," I said.

I walked back up the ramp with my arm burning and my head clear and cold for the first time all day.

Nobody was at our booth.

Nobody was at the bar.

The hostess told me Mrs. Hartwell had left with a headache, and Mr. Costanza's guest had gone upstairs.

"Upstairs?"

"The roof, ma'am. He said he needed air."

The steakhouse sat on the ground floor of the Hartwell Rush, the family's small hotel on Rush Street.

Its elevator was lined with mirrors.

In every one of them I looked like a woman who needed air.

It was raining on the terrace.

Cold, thin, steady rain, the kind that makes the lights of a city run like paint.

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