Her Vengeful Rebirth novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Decoy

Thalia hides the real notebook with her mother's old partner, writes a decoy that is almost right, and lends it to her stepsister at a dinner where her fiance moves the wedding up; in the dark kitchen he tells her to sign the holding papers tomorrow.

By seven o'clock the lobby was empty and Lab 4 smelled of cold coffee and champagne.

I stood in front of Room 4C with my hand flat on the freezer door.

The steel was cool and dull and perfectly innocent.

The inside release was a red handle on a spring, and this time nobody had jammed it.

"You've been staring at that door for ten minutes," Dot said behind me.

Dot Quill had run this lab with my mother before I was born.

She was sixty-three, five feet two, with a silver crop and a cardigan she had worn since the Clinton administration.

"Dot," I said, "I need a favor, and I can't tell you why."

"Of course you can't." She pushed her glasses up into her hair.

"Your mother said the same thing to me in 1998."

"What happened?"

"She walked out of the university with a notebook and a loan."

"Did you ask her why?"

"I made her a sandwich instead."

I laughed, and then my voice cracked in the middle of it.

Dot put down her coffee and did not ask a single question.

I took the blue cloth notebook out of the safe, the one I had carried since I was nineteen.

Every page was my handwriting, and every page was worth more than this building.

"Hide this," I said. "Somewhere nobody would look for a billion dollars."

Dot looked at the notebook for a long moment.

Then she opened the cabinet over the sink and took down a dented tin of English breakfast tea.

She poured the tea bags into a drawer, slid the notebook in, and put the lid back on.

"I'll put it between the Earl Grey and the shortbread," she said. "Nobody in this building has ever made me a cup of tea."

"I need one more thing," I said. "A second notebook."

An hour later we sat at the lab bench with a new blue notebook and a pot of that same tea.

I wrote the whole formula out again in my own hand, in my own shorthand, down to the coffee ring on the cover.

It was perfect, with one exception.

On page nine I wrote the buffer at 6.8.

The true number was 7.4.

"That batch turns to soup in nine days," Dot said, reading over my shoulder.

"Yes," I said.

Her eyebrows went up and stayed there.

"Remind me never to make you angry."

"You couldn't if you tried," I said, and kissed her papery cheek.

Dinner at my father's house was roast chicken and a toast to the future.

My stepmother sat at the foot of the table in pearls, studying my hair.

"For the engagement photos, darling," she said, "you'll want to iron those curls."

In my first life I had ironed them every morning for three years.

"No, thank you," I said, and passed her the potatoes.

My father laughed, delighted.

Daphne sat across from me in her green dress with her chin in her hand.

She was twenty-two, with a pale-gold bob and eyes as round as a kitten's.

Cameron sat beside me with his hand on my knee, and I kept my face soft and my knee perfectly still.

"Cyril," he said, raising his glass. "I have a favor to ask of the whole family."

"Name it, son."

"We shouldn't wait until June." He squeezed my knee. "I want Thalia to be my wife by the twenty-ninth of November."

My stepmother gasped.

My father clapped his hands.

Daphne's smile sharpened at the edges and then smoothed itself out.

I stared at my plate and counted to five.

"Six weeks," I said, in my silliest voice. "Cameron, how romantic. I haven't even picked flowers."

"I'll pick them for you," Daphne said at once.

She leaned across the table, her hand held out.

"Thalia, I've been dying to see your notebook, the one you're always carrying."

"Everybody says it's genius, and I want to read what my big sister does all day."

I could see the little muscle jump in Cameron's jaw.

I reached into my bag and took out the blue notebook, the one with the coffee ring.

"Oh, it's just scribbles," I said, giggling. "You can have it for the weekend."

Daphne took it in both hands.

"You're the best," she whispered.

"Of course I am," I said.

Cameron's thumb moved on my knee, slow and pleased.

He walked me to the kitchen afterward while the others drank coffee in the front room.

The kitchen was dark, and he kept the light off.

"You surprised me today," he said, still smiling, "with the card."

"Did I?"

"I need that card, Thal. It's just a formality."

"Of course," I said.

He bent and kissed my forehead.

"And tomorrow morning at nine, the holding papers come to your desk. Sign them, and I'll forget all about it."

I looked up into his handsome face and felt nothing at all, not even fear.

"Tomorrow at nine," I said sweetly. "I wouldn't miss it."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

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