The Wedding She Survived novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Warm Apology

Killian's POV

I watched Willa carry the last child up her mother's steps, and I knew the shouting would start before the door closed.

It did.

I stood in the dark front room of the rental with a duffel I hadn't unpacked and listened to it through the glass.

I couldn't hear words, only her voice going up, and her mother's staying low.

Then a door slammed upstairs, and the street went quiet.

I had spent five years believing Willa Gleeson sold me for two million dollars.

I had spent a week learning that she hadn't, and that she'd raised three children alone because of it.

Both of those facts had a weight, and I carried them to the window and stood there.

At nine o'clock, a small flashlight blinked in the upstairs window of her house.

Three short flashes, then three more.

I didn't know what it meant until I saw a child's hand holding it, with a smaller hand over the top.

They were saying goodnight.

Nobody had told me that was possible.

I raised my phone to flash back, and I lowered it again.

Nobody had invited me to answer.

I took my phone out and counted the nights I had missed, because a number was easier to hold than the rest.

One thousand, seven hundred and some.

I stopped counting at the first thousand.

The knock on my door was soft, and I opened it expecting Willa.

It was Maureen.

She had a cardigan over her shoulders and a covered dish in her hands, and her eyes were red.

"Mr. Draycott," she said. "I won't come in. I brought you something to eat, and I owe you a word."

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