I Had a Baby without You novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Cufflink

The lobby of Draycott Tower had a ceiling three stories high and a floor you could see your face in.

I walked across it at nine in the morning in my good coat, with the cufflink in my fist.

I had left Poppy with Rhona's mother and told her I'd be back for lunch.

The woman at the front desk looked me up and down.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"I have something of Mr. Draycott's."

"Leave it with me."

"I'll give it to him myself."

She was reaching for the phone when the elevator chimed.

Gretchen stepped out in a pale suit with a leather folder under her arm.

She saw me.

For half a breath her face went blank.

Then she smiled.

"Morwen Cafferty," she said, loudly, so the whole lobby could hear. "What a surprise. Roark told me you'd be coming by."

"He didn't."

"Didn't he?" She walked up to me, bright and brittle. "He said you'd been a great help last night."

The word *last night* landed in the quiet.

Three men at the security desk looked up.

"I'm returning a cufflink."

"May I see it?"

I opened my hand.

She lifted it between two fingers and held it high.

"The Draycott family crest cufflink," she announced to nobody. "A gift from his father, worth forty thousand dollars, missing since last night."

"I didn't take it."

"Of course you didn't." She turned to the guards. "Search her."

The tallest guard stepped forward.

"Ma'am, we'll need to see your bag."

"It was on the table in my diner. He forgot it."

"It was on the table in your diner,"

Gretchen repeated, sweetly, in the voice of a woman reading a confession.

"At midnight.

When he was alone with you."

I understood what she was doing.

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