My Groom Walked Out, So His Brother Took His Place novel · Chapter 7 of 32

Chapter 7: Handled

I stood at that glass door for the length of his call and did not breathe.

I heard "yes, sir" three more times.

I heard "the plan stands" and "November" and a short laugh that sounded nothing like him.

Then he said goodnight to his father and turned around.

I had gone back down the hall before the door slid.

I was lying in the white bed with my eyes shut when he came in and sat down on the edge.

He did not touch me.

He sat there a long time, and then he went out and lay down on the couch.

I knew, because I heard it creak.

In the morning I made coffee in a kitchen I couldn't look at.

He came in, unshaven, with his hair on end, and stopped at the sight of me in his shirt.

"Morning," Jude said.

"Morning," I said.

"Did you sleep?"

"Like a rock."

That was a lie.

He studied me across the counter, and I met his eyes and smiled.

I had made up my mind at four a.m., staring at the ceiling.

It was simple, really.

I had set the terms myself, in a tack room, in a wedding dress.

I had said I would leave on the fourth of November, and he had agreed.

Whatever his father wanted, whatever the plan was, I had signed on to a short marriage.

I had no right to be hurt.

But I did not have to be a fool either.

If he was going to be the husband in the picture, and I was going to be the wife, then I would take what I wanted from the arrangement and give nothing I didn't choose to.

He wanted me.

That much I knew in my body.

I could use that.

"What's the schedule?" I asked.

"The photographer's coming at ten."

"Good. I want a swim first," I said.

"Bryn..."

"The boathouse has a dock. I'll be down there."

I went out the back door in his shirt and my bare feet.

The lake was flat and green and warm.

At the end of the long dock stood a wood boathouse with its doors open to the water, one slip with a ski boat inside and a shelf of life jackets and rope.

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