I Waited Five Years to Marry Him, Then I Found Out He'd Married My Best Friend novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Three Boxes

In the lobby of her old building Eliza finds her life packed since Thursday; Constance offers forty thousand dollars for her silence and Eliza tears the check up in front of the neighbors, while Eli carries her boxes out and shows her the clip with Greer's caption.

"Who are you?" I said.

"Eli Ardmore. Chase's half-brother."

He didn't offer his hand.

"I'm not here to talk you into anything," he said.

"Then why are you here?"

"I heard my stepmother tell her lawyer, 'Tonight, as planned.' I was getting my coat. Then you walked in."

I looked at him.

He was tall and broad, with a scar through his left eyebrow and a dark jacket that had seen real work.

"As planned," I said.

"Yes."

I had a ring in my pocket, a phone at four percent and nowhere to sleep.

"I'm going home," I said. "I want to see the locks myself."

"I'll drive you. You can sit in the back and tell me to go to hell."

"I'll sit in the front."

His truck smelled of sawdust and coffee.

He said nothing all the way down Lake Shore Drive, and I was grateful.

My building had a green awning and a doorman I had brought banana bread every Christmas for five years.

He stood inside the glass with three cardboard boxes at his feet.

He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Ms. Farraday," he said. "I'm so sorry. I was told to give you these."

"Told by whom?"

"Management."

Management was Ardmore Properties, which was Constance.

My lease had Chase's name on it and never mine.

I held my key fob to the inner door, and the light went red.

Three neighbors stood by the mailboxes, studying their phones.

I crouched and opened the flap of the first box.

My winter boots were in it, and my stethoscope, and my grandmother's quilt.

Someone had packed them neatly.

The tape across the top was dry, with a date written on it in marker.

Last Wednesday, the day after my scan.

Whoever boxed up my life had done it days before I walked into that room.

Chase had held my hand on Friday and made me soup on Saturday.

"Eliza."

The elevator opened behind me.

Constance Ardmore stepped out in her navy suit and pearls, with a leather folder under her arm.

She had left the restaurant before me and beaten me here.

"I thought we might finish this like adults," she said.

"Where's the baby?" I asked.

"At home, where he belongs."

She opened the folder and held out a check.

"Forty thousand dollars," she said. "A fair settlement for five years of rent-free living."

"And?"

"A statement for you to sign. It says you left on your own and make no claim on my son or this property."

I took the check and read it.

It was made out to me, with my full name spelled right.

She had planned this to the dollar.

"I was a nurse practitioner when I met your son," I said. "I paid half the groceries."

"Dear, you were never on the lease."

"I paid my own chemo copays," I said. "I paid for the ring in my pocket."

"That was your choice."

"It was. I just waited for the wrong man to make his."

One of the neighbors shifted.

I tore the check in half.

I tore it again and again, and dropped the pieces into the box on top of my winter boots.

"Keep your forty thousand," I said. "I'll take my quilt."

Constance didn't glance at the neighbors. She looked at me.

"You work at a children's clinic," she said. "I sit on the board of the hospital that runs it."

"I know."

"You have very little money. I would think twice."

"I've thought twice about everything for five years. I'm done."

I stood up with the first box and nearly dropped it.

A big hand took the other side.

Eli had come in through the glass doors without any of us seeing.

He took the box from me, picked up the second under his other arm, and nodded to the doorman, who hurried over with the third.

Constance's face did not change.

"Eli," she said. "I was told you'd gone back to Milwaukee."

"I'm leaving soon."

"You'll sign the papers on your shares, or you won't be welcome in this family again."

"I haven't been welcome since I was twenty-five," he said. "I've done fine."

He walked out with my boxes.

I followed him with the quilt over my arm and my chin up, past three neighbors and one very quiet doorman.

At the truck, he slid the boxes into the back.

His left hand was wrapped in a handkerchief, and a dark stain had come through it.

"You're bleeding," I said.

"There was a broken picture frame in the second box."

"Show me."

"It's fine."

"Eli."

He didn't. His phone buzzed on the dashboard, and he looked at it and went still.

"What is it?" I said.

He turned the screen toward me.

It was the video from the Garden Room. My voice, my coat, my open ring box.

The counter said two million views.

Under it was a post from Greer's own account.

"Praying for her tonight. She hasn't been well since the cancer."

← 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