One Night to Forever novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: What He Said at the Door

"Because every word she said was mine," I said.

Desmond didn't move.

"I told her at 5:51 that morning, from your hotel elevator and then the street outside," I said.

"She was my best friend. I thought she was happy for me."

"That's convenient."

"It's not convenient, it's humiliating."

I stood up, because I couldn't say the next part sitting down.

"You want proof, and I don't have a photo. I have one thing I didn't tell her."

"Then tell me."

I came around the corner of the table until I was close enough to smell the cedar of his soap.

"At the door of 2210, before you touched the zipper, you put your mouth by my ear."

"You said, 'Don't be nice to me. I'm tired of people being nice to me.'"

His whole body went still.

"And I said, 'Then I'll be terrible.'"

For a long moment, I could hear only the clock on the mantel.

"I never told anyone," Desmond said, very low. "Not Ford, not my grandmother. I didn't know I'd said it out loud."

"You said it."

"You said you'd be terrible."

"I was, a little," I said, "at four."

He laughed once, a rough, helpless sound.

Then he came around the table and took my face in both hands.

He looked at me the way he hadn't been able to in the lobby.

His thumbs moved over my cheekbones.

"There you are," he said.

I thought my knees would give.

"Margaret will want her main course," I said, shakily.

"Margaret can have the whole cow."

He took my hand and pulled me out through the back hall.

We passed the coat room and the kitchen and came out into the cold dark garden.

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