My Stepsister Stole My Husband. He Was My Killer. novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Keep Him
At Dad's dinner Brynn walks past the billionaire and kisses Lena's fiancé; Lena hands back the ring, and Brynn whispers that she remembers the terrace too.
Dad was halfway through introducing my stepsister Brynn to the billionaire when she stood up.
"This is my younger daughter, who just finished her degree," Dad said.
Brynn shoved back her chair.
She walked behind Dad's seat and straight past the billionaire's offered hand.
She crossed the dining room in front of eighteen board members and their wives.
Shane Whitaker stood by the kitchen door with a tray of coffee cups.
He helped his mother serve every Sunday dinner.
Brynn took the tray out of his hands and set it on the sideboard.
Then she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth.
Shane was my fiancé.
I had worn his ring for eight weeks.
A spoon rang against a saucer, and nobody else made a sound.
Shane did not push her off.
His hands went to her waist and stayed there.
Then he took her wrists and lowered them, and stepped back.
"Brynn. What are you doing?"
"What I should have done a year ago," she said, loud enough for every guest to hear.
"Brynn!" Dad said.
I did not move.
I had woken up that afternoon in my childhood bed, twenty-seven again, with the taste of another life still in my mouth.
In that life, I married Shane Whitaker.
Two years later he walked me out onto the terrace of our summer house and pushed me over the railing.
The police called it a fall.
I had come to this dinner to end the engagement quietly, and I had a speech ready.
Brynn had just saved me the speech.
His mother stood in the kitchen doorway with the coffeepot in her hands.
She looked at Brynn, then at the floor, and she did not look at her son.
Then she looked at me across the room.
She was not sorry and she was not surprised.
She was smiling.
Shane crossed the room to me.
"Lena, hey." His voice was gentle.
He took my cold hand and rubbed it between both of his, the way he did in winter.
"You're freezing. Come sit down, I'll get you water, and we'll talk in the car. I love you."
He said it softly, with his eyes on my face.
He looked sincerely worried about me.
That was the only face he had ever shown me.
His thumb pressed the spot on my wrist where he would press later, in the other life.
I pulled my hand out of his.
He blinked, hurt, and a few guests saw it.
Some of them nodded, as if I were the one being cruel.
"Lena, sit," Dad said. "Don't make this worse than it is."
"Worse?" I said.
"Brynn is young. Be the bigger woman."
Twenty people stared at me.
Some of the wives were already looking at their plates, so they could say later that they hadn't watched.
I looked down at the diamond on my finger.
Then I pulled it off.
It came off hard, over the knuckle.
I walked to the sideboard and put it on the tray, between two cups of decaf.
"Keep him, Brynn," I said. "He's all yours."
"Lena." Shane's voice dropped. "You're upset. You don't mean that."
"I mean it more than I've ever meant anything."
"Lena Caldwell, you sit down," Dad said.
"No."
The chair at the far end of the table scraped.
Malcolm Crowninshield stood up.
He had not touched his wine.
Malcolm Crowninshield was thirty-six, the youngest billionaire in Boston, and my father, Marshall Caldwell, had spent three weeks arranging this dinner for him.
He did not look at Brynn.
He looked at me.
"Lena," he said.
Nobody had introduced us.
Dad had said Brynn's name and not mine.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Mr. Crowninshield."
"Malcolm," he said.
"Malcolm."
"Then I'll walk you out."
"We haven't discussed the agreement," Dad said to him, fast.
"Your daughter is leaving," Malcolm said. "I would like to see her to her car."
"I can walk," I said.
I picked up my bag from the back of my chair.
Shane stepped into my path.
"Come on. Don't do this in front of people."
"You kissed her in front of people," I said. "Move."
He smiled and stepped aside, because there were people watching.
"Lena," Dad said behind me. "If you walk out that door, don't expect to come back tonight."
"I wasn't planning to."
I crossed the room.
Brynn was standing by the sideboard with her arms folded and her chin up.
She had Shane's tray at her elbow with my ring on it.
I had to walk right past her to reach the door.
She turned her head and spoke very softly, so only I could hear.
"Thank you for making room, Lena."
I stopped.
"Don't look so scared," she said. "I remember the terrace too."
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