Four Hundred Guests Watched Him Cheat, So I Took Everything He Had novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Two Rooms, Separate Floors

I opened Porter's box on the porch swing, with my mother's coffee going cold beside me.

Inside, on tissue paper, lay a printed itinerary and two airline tickets.

Eight nights on an island I had spent a year saving for.

The names on the tickets were Porter Lindell and Blair Stroud.

A note was clipped to the top in his tight, neat handwriting.

You said on the riser they could use the honeymoon. It's non-refundable, so I moved the names. Blair thinks it's her comeback. I am taking her. Two rooms, like you ordered. I'll never ask you for anything again.

Under the tissue was a small velvet bag.

I tipped it into my palm.

It was my father's gold wedding ring.

I knew it at once, from the dent on the inside where he had caught it in a car door the year I was born.

"Mom," I said. "Mom."

She came out onto the porch and saw it, and she sat down on the top step, hard.

"Where did he find it?" she asked.

"There's another note."

I unfolded it.

I found it in Harlan's office safe, in an envelope marked with the jeweler's receipt. He bought it back the week your mother sold it. He wanted something to hold over you.

My mother held the ring against her lips.

She did not cry.

She sat there for a long time with her eyes closed.

"Your father trusted that man with everything," she said finally. "I'm about to stop forgiving him for it."

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