Pushed Overboard Pregnant, I Crashed My Husband's Wedding novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Offer

I stepped out from behind the curtain.

Wesley's father stood by the door with his hat in his hand, and he smiled at me warmly.

"There she is," he said. "Sit down, Hallie. You must be exhausted."

"I'll stand."

"Then I will, too."

He did not look at my mother.

My mother looked at him and said nothing.

"I'll be brief," he said. "My son has behaved badly. I will not insult you by pretending otherwise."

"Behaved badly."

"There is a way through this that costs no one anything they cannot afford."

He took a folded paper from inside his coat and held it out.

I did not take it, so he laid it on the table beside the pills.

"Read it, please."

I read it standing up.

It was one page, typed, with a line for my signature.

*I, Hallie Winslow Langford, state that on the evening of the cruise I was pushed from the Marguerite by my friend Whitney Delamotte, out of jealousy. My husband tried to save me. After I was rescued, I was held against my will by Mason Reeve.*

The paper shook a little in my hand.

"Whitney," I said.

"Miss Delamotte lied about a pregnancy in front of three hundred witnesses," he said. "No one will be surprised."

"And Wesley?"

"Wesley has been through enough."

"He pushed me."

"He tried to save you. In your trauma you remember it differently." His voice stayed gentle. "That is what the doctors will say, and they will say it very kindly."

My mother made a small sound in her throat.

"There is money," the old man said. "Three million dollars, in a trust for you and the child. A quiet divorce. A house in any city you like."

"And if I don't sign?"

"The hold the doctor wrote becomes a commitment." He said it softly. "Thirty days, and then thirty more. The child would be born in a state facility, under a guardian's supervision, and I am afraid no one would know where you were."

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