He Kept the Firm, So I Booked His Engagement Dinner novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Kelsey at Seven

On Monday morning at seven, someone was knocking on the glass door of my studio.

It was Kelsey.

She wore a plain grey sweater and no makeup, and her left hand was bare.

I stood on my side of the door with my coffee and did not unlock it.

"Cora, please," she said through the glass. "Five minutes. I'll stand out here if you want."

"You called me Radcliff's toy in front of my staff."

"I know."

"And you wore my mother's ring to my apartment."

"I know that too." Her voice cracked. "I didn't know it was hers until Saturday."

I unlocked the door.

She came in and sat at the long table, on the very edge of a chair.

"I can't do the work," she said. "You knew that. Everybody knew."

"I knew."

"I never drew a floor plan that stood up. I got hired anyway, and I never asked why."

"Why?"

"Marguerite is my godmother." She said it to the table. "She paid off my student loans when I was twenty-two. Thirty-eight thousand dollars, from a church fund she runs."

I put my coffee down.

"She said you needed a junior, and I needed a start. She said you'd carry me." Kelsey wiped her nose with her wrist. "Then she started talking about Rodrick."

"What did she say?"

"That he was unhappy. That he was lonely in his own house, and I was a kind girl who would be good for him." She looked up, red-eyed. "I believed her. I thought I was comforting a man whose wife didn't see him."

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