He Hid Our Marriage for Two Years, So I Told the Whole Ballroom novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: The Check

Rosamund brings Ione's sister's kitchen a divorce petition and a half-million-dollar check; Ione hands it back and gives Lachlan until Friday, and Rosamund asks how far along she is.

Posey made pancakes at eight in the morning because that is what she does when somebody's life has fallen apart.

"Eat," she said, and slid a plate across the counter of her one-bedroom.

"I'm not hungry."

"You're eating for two. I looked it up. Also, you threw up in my good towel, so you owe me."

I laughed, and it came out wet.

My little sister is twenty-five and loud.

At one in the morning she had held my hair over her toilet without asking a single question until I was done.

Then she had asked all of them at once.

I had told her everything, even the pregnancy.

She had gone quiet for a whole minute, which she had never done in her life.

Then she said, "Okay. Whoever he is to the rest of the world, he's not getting you back for free."

The doorbell rang at ten past nine.

Posey looked through the peephole and said a word I won't put on paper.

"It's his mother," Posey whispered.

"Open it," I said.

"Ione."

"I'm not hiding in my sister's bathroom from Rosamund Beaufain," I told her.

Posey opened the door.

Rosamund stood in the hallway in a cream suit and pearls.

She carried a leather folio.

She did not wait to be asked in.

She looked at the pancake plates, the stack of Posey's pharmacy scrubs on the couch, the cracked tile by the stove.

"I'd hoped for a quiet conversation," she said. "Is there somewhere we can sit?"

"There's the kitchen," Posey said. "Mind the syrup."

Rosamund sat at our counter on a stool with a chipped seat and laid the folio in front of her.

She opened it.

Inside lay a stapled petition, a pen, and a cashier's check.

I read the number on the check.

Five hundred thousand dollars.

"That is a great deal of money," Rosamund said, "for a girl who spent two years as a rumor."

Posey made a choking noise.

Rosamund went on in the same polite voice.

"You'll sign the petition for dissolution. You'll sign a confidentiality agreement."

"In return you'll have the check and a letter of reference for any hospital in the country."

"The Foundation owns half my hospital's new wing," I said. "That's not a reference. That's a leash."

"You may call it what you like."

"You knew," I said.

For the first time Rosamund's eyes moved off the paper.

"I'm sorry?"

"You knew about the marriage. You didn't look surprised last night. You looked pleased."

She did not answer.

She pushed the pen an inch toward me.

I looked at the check again.

Half a million dollars was more than my mother had earned in her last ten years of working.

It would have paid for Posey's pharmacy school and a house for the baby.

And it would have said, forever, in the language of money, that I was something Lachlan's family had paid to remove.

I slid the folio back across the counter with one finger.

"No," I said.

"You haven't read the confidentiality terms," Rosamund said.

"I don't need to. I'm not signing anything today," I said.

"Miss Dufresne, you have no standing in that family," Rosamund said. "You have a courthouse receipt."

"I have a husband," I said.

"You have a man who let you stand in a ballroom alone."

That went in deep, because it was true.

I let it sit there between us.

Then I said what I had been practicing in the shower.

I said it then.

"Here is what I want. Lachlan stands in front of you, Verity's father and his board by Friday."

"He says that I'm his wife. He says it to their faces, with me there if I choose to be."

"And if he doesn't?" Rosamund asked.

"Then I file myself, and I take nothing," I said.

"The first thing I say in the filing is how long I was kept hidden, and by whom."

Rosamund closed the folio.

"My son will do nothing so foolish."

"Then Friday will be short," I said.

Posey said, "Syrup?" very brightly, and held up the bottle.

Rosamund gave her a long look.

She rose, smoothed her skirt, and tucked the folio under her arm.

The check was still on the counter.

I picked it up and put it in her hand.

"You dropped this."

She took it.

For a moment she stood there with the paper hanging from her fingers, and I thought she would say something real.

Her mouth moved once.

Then she went to the door.

Posey was ahead of her, holding it open with great ceremony.

Rosamund passed through, and at the threshold she turned her head.

She was not looking at my face.

She was looking at my left hand, which had gone, without my permission, to rest flat on my stomach.

I took it away too late.

"How far along?" Rosamund said.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

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