I Was His Waiting Room novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: The Wife

Maura learns Kiera is secretly married to the heir who crashed the car and paid to stay married, and goes to warn Ronan, only to find he's at a jeweler with Kiera.

I sat down.

Not because he told me to. Because my knees made the decision.

"That's not possible," I said. "She's with Ronan. She was kissing Ronan last night on her couch."

"Who's Ronan?"

I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

Three years of practice. Nobody's anybody.

"A friend," I said.

He looked at me a moment too long.

Then he crouched down to my level, carefully, with one eye on the puppy still sitting on his shoe.

"Las Vegas," he said. "Four years ago. A chapel with an Elvis in it. My brother was drunk and so was she. They came home married and told no one but my mother and me."

"She told everyone she was single."

"She told everyone a lot of things."

"And a year after that," I said slowly, "the crash."

"Storrow Drive. My brother's car. My brother driving, three times the limit. She was in the passenger seat."

He said it flat, like he'd rehearsed it so often the words had gone smooth.

"Brendan pleaded guilty. He did twenty-two months. My family didn't want a civil trial on top of it. So we pay her."

"How much?"

"Twelve thousand a month, plus care. For as long as she stays his wife."

"And if she divorces him?"

"It stops that day. That's how the agreement reads."

"Who wrote the agreement?"

He held my eyes.

"I did."

Kerry had gone quiet behind me, which never happens.

"So she can't divorce him," Kerry said, "because the money stops."

"She won't divorce him. My brother asked her in March. She asked for three million dollars to sign."

I looked at the invoices in my lap.

Nine hundred a month in my name, on top of twelve thousand.

I thought of the dry water bowl.

I thought of her rolling her chair close and patting my wrist.

His phone buzzed. He looked at the screen and put it on speaker without asking.

"Niall." A man's voice, clipped. "Did you find the trainer?"

"I'm with her now."

"Good. I've drafted the demand letter. Fraud, conversion, thirty-two four plus costs. We'll file by Friday if she doesn't pay it back."

Kerry said a word that made Biscuit's ears go flat.

Niall looked at me.

"Tell him," he said.

"Tell him what?"

"Whatever you were about to say before you said 'a friend'."

I didn't know this man.

I'd known him for nineteen minutes.

And I had never once said any of it out loud to anyone who wasn't Kerry.

"I gave Kiera that dog for free," I said toward the phone. "Ronan Fahey asked me to. He's her ex from college. He was also my boyfriend, for three years. Nobody knew. He said she couldn't handle a shock. I never sent anybody a bill. Last night I walked in on them kissing, and she asked me when I was going to get a boyfriend."

Silence on the line.

"Is this recorded?" the lawyer said.

"I'll call you back," Niall said, and hung up on him.

He stood.

"I believe you," he said.

"Just like that?"

"No. Because your signature is terrible, your contract is free, and nobody who runs a fraud this size stands in an empty firehouse with one chair."

"That's very romantic."

"I'm a CFO. That's as romantic as it gets."

Kerry snorted.

He took a card from his wallet and wrote a cell number on the back in small, square letters.

"I'm keeping the originals," he said. "Copies are in the folder. Don't talk to her about this yet."

"I'm not going to talk to her. I'm going to talk to Ronan."

He paused at the bay door.

"Does Ronan know she's married?"

"If he did," I said, "he'd have told me."

He didn't say anything to that.

He didn't have to.

The drive to Fahey Route took nine minutes. I'd done it a thousand times at night and never once gone inside in daylight.

The old mill on Freeport Street had a new glass door with his logo etched on it.

I'd paid that door's rent for eight months.

The front desk was a girl with two phones and a ring light.

"Hi! Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Ronan."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"I'm Maura."

She smiled the polite smile you give a stranger.

"Okay, Maura. And this is about?"

Behind her, on the wall, was a big framed photo from the company's fifth birthday party.

Thirty people in Fahey Route t-shirts. Ronan in the middle.

Kiera in the front row in her chair, laughing, his hand on her shoulder.

I'd been home that night. He told me the party was staff only.

"It's personal," I said.

"Oh, he's out all afternoon." She lowered her voice, delighted. "He's at a jeweler on Newbury Street. Don't tell anyone I said."

"I won't."

I walked back to my truck.

My phone lit up on the seat before I had the key in.

Kiera had posted.

A close-up of her hand on a velvet tray, red nails, and a diamond the size of a pea.

The caption read: Seven years later. Still him.

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