He Made Her His Wife for Seven Days. I Made Him My Ex. novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: The Photograph
I unlocked the shop door and did not open it.
"Helen."
"Sylvie." Through the glass she looked smaller than she had in the boardroom. "May I come in? I'll be brief."
"You can say it from there."
She almost smiled.
"Of course. You've learned to be careful with me."
"I've learned to be careful with a lot of things."
Helen looked down at the photograph in her hands.
Then she held it against the glass, face out, so I could see it.
It showed Nathaniel in the Sterne's elevator, in a dark suit.
A woman stood close to him in a pale dress, with one hand flat on his chest and her face tipped up.
His hand was on the small of her back.
"Taken last spring," Helen said, through the door. "By the man who drives my car. He keeps a great many pictures of people who come and go from that hotel. Look at his face, dear."
I looked.
His face was tender.
"I would hate for you to think you were the first," Helen said. "He kept a room for a year for any Holloway wife who walked out. And before that, a woman in his elevator. I wouldn't call it a pattern, only a type. A man who watches."
She tilted her head.
"Doesn't it make you wonder?"
That was the voice, soft and sorry.
I had heard it say Don't be dramatic and Be gracious, and Think how it would look.
It was the voice that had made my stomach turn over for four years every time my husband was late.
I waited for the turn in my stomach.
It did not come.
I felt something much smaller and much cleaner, and it took me a moment to name it.
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