Fake Names with Me Love Bombs for Her? Screw This Secret CEO Wife Is Done novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Condolences

Gregory's mother brings a casserole and a fifty-thousand-dollar cheque to Frank's kitchen and asks for his papers and his watch, though nobody has told her he had one; a bang comes from the garage.

Gregory's mother came to my father's house at noon with a casserole.

I hadn't called her. I hadn't known she had the address.

I had never met her. In three years, Gregory had told me his family was gone.

She stood on the porch in a cream suit with pearl earrings and a silver bob, holding the dish in both hands.

"Maisie," she said. "May I call you Maisie? I'm Odile. I'm so sorry about your father."

I should have shut the door.

But I was tired, and I had a question, so I let her in.

She set the casserole on Dad's kitchen counter next to the stack of sympathy cards and looked around at the linoleum and the old oil calendar from Hanley's Auto.

"Gregory is a wreck," she said. "He hasn't slept. He wants to explain."

"He can explain to the police."

"Of course." She touched my arm. Her hand was dry and warm. "Sit, dear. You look like you might fall over."

I didn't sit.

I took out my phone and set it face up on the counter, and I pressed the red button where she could see it.

"I'm recording this," I said.

"Good," Odile said, with no pause at all. "You should. You're alone in the world right now, and you should keep everything."

That was kind, and it made the back of my neck prickle.

"Why did you call the police at five this morning?" I said. "Before anyone found the grave?"

"The funeral home called me." She said it easily. "Gregory gave them my number as the family contact. They said a groundskeeper had phoned them about a disturbance. I called the police to be safe."

"The caretaker says he found it at six."

"Did he? Men tell the time so loosely." She smiled. "I'm sure it was all very confusing for him."

It was a good answer.

It was so smooth that I wanted to believe it, and I stood there wanting to for a second.

"Who is Poppy Sayer?" I asked.

"A nice girl. The daughter of a very old friend. A business arrangement, nothing more." She turned a card on the counter so it sat straight. "Gregory's position needs a certain kind of wife on paper. It's an old company, Maisie, with old people on its board. You understand that."

"On paper."

"And what am I on paper?"

Odile looked at me then, kindly, for a long moment.

"You are the one he loves," she said. "I'd like to help you with the rest."

She opened her purse and took out a cheque, already written, and slid it across the counter to me.

It was for fifty thousand dollars.

The memo line said: Funeral expenses and consideration.

"For your trouble," she said. "And for the house. Gregory's hurt you. I'd like to make it a little easier."

"What does consideration mean?"

"It means we're being generous. People ask for things at this stage, and I'd like to be ahead of it." She tapped the cheque with one nail. "All I ask is a little patience while we sort the family out. And that you let us look after your father's papers, so nothing gets lost in this upset."

I looked at the cheque.

My father had left me a house with a leaking roof, a savings account of eleven hundred dollars, and a toolbox.

Fifty thousand was more money than I had ever held.

I pushed the cheque back to her side of the counter.

"No," I said.

"Take your time. There's no rush."

"No, thank you."

For a moment, her face did nothing at all.

Then she folded the cheque in half and put it in her purse and was warm again.

"I understand. You're grieving. We'll talk when you're stronger." She stopped at the kitchen doorway and looked back at the cards. "And the watch, Maisie. Where is Frank's watch?"

I had mentioned the watch to exactly one person, Gregory, in a whisper at the open coffin.

I had not said a word about it to his mother, and the officers had never heard it from me.

"What watch?" I said.

"His wristwatch, dear. Men like that always have one. If it's turned up, I'd like to be the first to hear."

"Why?"

"Sentiment." She smiled again. "I knew your father once. A long time ago. He was a good mechanic."

She let herself out. The screen door clapped shut behind her.

I stood in my father's kitchen with the phone still recording, and I listened to her heels go down the steps.

A car door closed outside. The engine ran for a moment, and then it moved off.

I stopped the recording.

Then something banged in the garage behind the house.

It was one hard knock of metal on metal, and after it, someone dropped a tool.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend