Submitting to My Ex's Dad novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: Naples on the Phone
Benedict looked at the phone buzzing on the boards, and he did not pick it up.
"That's twice in one day," I said.
"Yes."
"She called last night, too."
"Yes."
"Who is she calling for?"
He met my eyes.
"For you, I think."
I took the phone and answered it, and put it on speaker, and set it on the rail between us.
"Hello?"
A woman's voice came out of it, low and dry, with Florida in the vowels.
"Is this Hallie?"
"Yes."
"I'm Preston's mother. I'm sorry for calling at a bad hour. Is Benedict there?"
"I'm here," Benedict said.
"Good. Then I'll say this once, with both of you listening."
She breathed in.
"Somebody sent me a video of my son kneeling on a sidewalk with a bouquet. I watched it four times."
"I'm sorry," Benedict said.
"Don't be."
"I raised him, too."
"I let you do all the saying no, and I did all the saying yes, and look what we made."
I said nothing.
"Hallie, I want to tell you something. He told you, I expect, that I left because of his rules."
"He told me you left on a Tuesday."
"I left because I was thirty and lonely, and I was too much of a coward to have a fight. I wrote a note instead."
"The rules were just where he hid. I let him believe it was the rules."
Benedict's face had gone completely still.
"I was wrong," his ex-wife said.
"He wasn't cold."
"He was frightened."
"I've had eighteen years to wish I'd stayed long enough to tell him so."
"Why now?" he said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Submitting to My Ex's Dad are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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