Neglected and Ignored by My Movie Star Husband novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Her Choice

Lance left at four, on foot, because he had given Roz his car keys to hold until he was sober.

I stood on the wet lawn and played the recording back once, with the phone pressed to my ear.

His voice came out thin and clear.

I had it, and nobody could say I had made it up.

Roz came down the step in her robe and took the phone out of my hand, looked at the screen and gave it back.

"Is it good?" she said.

"It's every word."

"Then get in the car."

"Where?"

"To the man who's been awake all night looking for a reason to kiss you again."

"Roz."

"I'm sixty-one, not blind. I'll drive. You'll talk. I have a thermos."

Mason's editing suite had one light on behind the plain door.

Roz parked at the curb and turned off the engine.

"Take your time," she said. "I have a crossword."

I knocked, and he opened the door in the same gray sweater, with a yellow legal pad in his hand and his eyes red.

He looked at my face.

"What happened?"

"Lance happened," I said. "Play me what you found."

He stepped aside, and I walked in.

He played the clip from day thirty-one, and Lance, in a fisherman's sweater, whispered my own sentence to himself.

Then the pier.

I stood in the cold dark of the suite and heard Camille's voice, warm and slow.

I picked her before I picked you. Don't forget whose idea she was.

When it ended, nobody spoke.

I took out my phone and pressed play.

Lance's voice filled the suite, thin and slurred, saying the sum out loud.

Mason listened to all of it standing, with one hand over his mouth.

When the recording finished, he turned off the monitor.

The room was very quiet.

"You have it on tape," he said. "Both of you, from two different directions."

"I have everything but my notebooks."

"You have the one thing she can't edit. Her own voice."

I laughed, and the laugh broke, and I put my hand over my eyes.

He crossed the room and stopped in front of me.

He did not touch me.

"Six years," I said into my palm. "I loved a man who was a line item. I gave my work to a woman who chose me. Everything I thought was mine was her plan."

"Not everything."

"What?"

"The pages are yours. The ink is yours. Roz's copy is yours." His voice was low and rough. "And you're the one who walked out of that theater."

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