He Auctioned Our Week to My Best Friend, So I Took the Helm novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Paddle Forty-One

Beaumont Hall looked exactly as it had the night I walked out of it.

It had the same chandeliers, the same round tables and white cloths, and a camera on a tripod by the stage with its red light on.

I sat at table nine in the green dress, which still fit, and held paddle forty-one in my lap.

Joanna sat on my left with a plate of canapés she had no intention of sharing.

Finnegan stood at the foot of the stage in a plain dark suit.

He had not looked at me since I came in.

I put that down to his job.

At eight the lights dropped, and a voice I didn't know said, "Please welcome Tobias Kemper."

He walked up the steps alone.

He wore a grey suit, and he had shaved, and his face was thinner than a week ago.

Tobias's mother sat at a table near the back with her handbag in her lap.

She was not looking at the stage either.

He put his hands on the glass podium.

"I donated the Marigold without asking my wife," he said. "It is her father's boat, and it belongs to her. I put it in a catalog and I made her watch."

The room didn't breathe.

"I booked two seats to Portland three weeks before the gala, and the second seat was not for her."

Someone at table three said a word quietly.

"I believed for a year that my wife had lied to me about wanting a child, and I never asked to see the evidence. I believed it because it let me off." He didn't look at his notes. "I was going to ask her for a divorce on the last night of that trip, while she was carrying my child. She had told me nothing about the baby, because I had given her no reason to."

← Chapter 19 · All chapters · Chapter 21 →

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