He Left My Bed for His Secretary, So I Took His Brother novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Empty House

Leah's POV

Courtroom nine smelled of floor wax and old coffee.

I sat at the front table with Dolores. In the last row, by the door, Nolan sat with his hands folded and his eyes on me.

I had not looked at him on purpose. I could feel him anyway.

The judge was a gray woman with half-glasses and no patience.

"Mr. Corbin," she said. "You are here to answer Ms. Sutherland's petition. You went to her door intoxicated. You told her you had tracked her phone for nine years."

Preston stood.

His suit hung loose on him. He had lost weight.

His lawyer tugged his sleeve and whispered, and Preston shook his head.

"Your Honor, I'd like to speak for myself."

"Briefly."

"Yes."

He turned, not to the judge, but toward me.

"Leah," he said. "I am not going to ask you for anything."

The room went still.

"I have asked for a great deal, for ten years, and called it love. I took your name off a company you paid for. I signed your name on a paper while you were in pain."

His voice did not crack.

"I did all of it, and I knew I was doing it. There's no excuse. I'm not offering one."

He drew a breath.

"My last shares go to the drivers' pension fund today. I signed the transfer this morning. It is not a gift to you, and it does not buy anything."

Dolores leaned toward me and whispered, "He wrote that himself."

"How do you know?"

"It has no adjectives."

I almost laughed.

"I consent to the order," Preston said. "Five hundred feet, two years, no contact. I'll sign what the court asks. I'm going to a clinic in Wisconsin on Monday. My mother has arranged it, and I have said yes."

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