My Stepsister Ran From the Wedding, So My Stepmother Sold Me to the Man Who Hates Her Mother novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Chair

Marcello looked at Carmela's hand on his sleeve until she took it away.

"Mrs. Scalise," he said. "My wife told you nothing. She was at the seawall with me after midnight."

"At the seawall," said Carmela.

"Eating shrimp." He glanced at me. "Is that right?"

"Six of them," I said.

Carmela's smile stayed where it was.

"The lease is confirmed through the term," Marcello said to the lawyer. "My wife's family keeps its rates. You can tell Ignazio Scalise that from me."

It was the first time I had heard anyone say my father's name aloud since the stroke.

"Thank you," said Carmela, and she got back into the Lincoln with her pearls and her folder and drove away.

I thought that was the end of it.

It was only the start of the morning.

The breakfast table was set for ten, with a place laid at each seat.

I walked in at eight in a clean sundress someone had left on my bed, and the room went quiet.

Six men in suits looked at their eggs.

The housekeeper, a stout woman with gray hair under a net, put a plate at the end of the table and stood by the sideboard with her eyes on the wall.

There was no chair at my place.

There were ten chairs, and nine were pulled out an inch.

The last one was pushed in square to the table, so far that its back touched the cloth.

I stood behind it.

Marcello sat at the head, reading a ledger, and did not look up.

I bent down and pulled the chair out myself, and sat.

Nobody spoke.

The housekeeper put a plate of eggs in front of every man, then one in front of me, then took mine away again.

"Sorry," she said to the wall. "Mr. Bellanca said none until noon."

"Then I'll wait for noon," I said.

I folded my hands on the cloth and waited.

At the end of the table an old woman put down her cup.

She was the smallest person in the room, with a ring of brass keys on her belt and a deeply lined face.

"Marcello," she said. "Your wife is not a dog."

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