After the Divorce, I Became His First Love's Sister-in-Law novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Torn Terms

"I tore it before you could ask," Etienne said.

He held the two halves of the contract out to me on the wet conservatory steps.

"I wanted you to see that I did it first."

I did not take them.

"Why?"

"Because I read it again at four this morning, and every line on it was a way of not saying the thing." His voice was rough with no sleep. "Rule five says whoever falls first loses. I fell in a concert hall six years ago. I lost then. I'm not playing the game any more."

I looked at his face, and I saw no part in it.

There was no brother of Delphine, no trustee, no man doing me a favour.

There was only a man who had not shaved.

"You said I chose him over your letters," I said.

"I said it to hurt you."

"It did."

"I know." He swallowed. "I thought that the moment you learned the truth, you would go back to him. I thought you were still half in love with the boy in room fourteen."

"Colin knelt in the rain last night," I said. "He said everything I wanted him to say for three years."

Etienne's hands tightened on the paper.

"And I walked past him," I said. "I walked to the end of the alley, and I got into the first car I saw. It happened to be Clarissa's, but I was looking for yours."

He closed his eyes.

"I thought I was only wanted for a part," I said. "The stand-in. The wife for a year. I thought that if you were kind to me, it was the contract done well."

"The contract is in two pieces."

"Then I think I can stop wondering," I said.

He dropped the paper on the steps.

He didn't pick it up.

I took one step and put my hand flat on his chest, and I felt his heart slam against it.

"Take me home," I said.

"You have rehearsal."

"The orchestra can wait an hour."

He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other hard around mine on the gearshift, and neither of us said a word.

He took me into the music room, where the Steinway stood in the grey morning light, and he locked the door.

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