On Halloween My Husband Bet I'd Never Leave Him So I Stopped Waiting novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Nothing

The river slid past the dock, black and quiet.

"You do not have to answer," Tommaso said.

"I know."

"I did not say it to be answered. I said it because it was true, and I was tired of it being only true to me."

"Tommaso."

"Yes?"

"I have a very large amount of work to do tonight," I said. "I have a company, and a board, and a husband I haven't divorced."

"Yes."

"Ask me again when it's done."

His mouth moved, and for the first time in ten years I saw him almost smile.

"I can wait," he said. "I am very good at it."

"I know you are."

I went back inside, with my knees steady and my heart not.

The hall was thinning.

Waiters were carrying away the white flowers, and the guests were leaving in clusters, talking low.

Russell stood alone beside the empty stage.

He had been there the whole time, I realized, at the back, behind the pillars.

He had watched all of it.

"Bianca," he said.

I stopped three feet from him.

"I didn't ask for the room," he said. "I know you didn't want one. I only wanted to say this where she said it."

"Say it."

He drew a breath, and he looked at the stage where the pie had been.

"I put a pie in your face because three hundred people were chanting," he said. "I hurt you because I couldn't stand to look weak in front of men I don't even like."

"Yes."

"I hung up on you the night your father died."

"Yes."

"I made you kneel in a lobby."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry." His voice was steady, and his eyes were wet. "I am not saying it so you will forgive me. I am saying it because it's true, and you were owed it three years ago, in the hospital, before any of this."

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