Swapped My Ex for His Billionaire Uncle novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Spare Key

Colin is waiting inside her apartment with a key she never got back; she drives him out with a skillet. A notice from his family's company is taped to her door.

"Then I'll wait for the judge," I said.

I said it loud enough for the doorman, the security desk, and the two men in suits by the revolving door.

"I've got three weeks and a napkin, Colin. Keep the scarf."

Colin laughed.

"Colin," Gregory said, behind me, in a voice I hadn't heard him use yet.

It was low and flat.

"Give her the scarf."

Colin looked at his uncle for one long second.

Then he held the scarf out by two fingers, and I took it and walked out through the revolving door into the cold.

I didn't look back to see if Gregory was watching.

I knew he was.

My apartment is on the fourth floor of an old brick building on Dorchester Avenue.

It has a radiator that bangs and a window that sticks.

I pay the rent on the first of every month with money I earned myself.

I climbed the stairs at nine o'clock that night, after a double shift of other people's children.

My key turned too easily.

The door was already unlocked.

The lamp in the living room was on, and I never leave the lamp on.

Colin sat on my couch with his feet on my coffee table and a glass of my whiskey in his hand.

"You got thin," he said. "Are you eating?"

My heart was going like a drum, and I kept my face still.

"How did you get in?"

He held up a brass key on a green plastic tag.

I had given him that key in July, on moving day.

I still thought he might help me carry boxes up the stairs.

"You never asked for it back," he said.

"Get out."

"I came to apologize. I was harsh today. Mom was there, and she makes me weird."

He stood up and came toward me, smiling the sad, boyish smile that used to work.

"I miss you, Pam. Whatever Cassia was, it's over. I'll fix it."

"Sign the paper, and I'll tear up my copy of the divorce. We start over."

"Colin, there was no start. There was you, and Cassia, and a hotel receipt on the family card."

His smile slipped.

"Everybody makes one mistake."

"It wasn't one mistake. It was six months of them, and I saw the dates."

"Don't say that to me."

"Get out of my apartment."

He crossed the room in two steps and took both of my wrists in one hand.

It didn't hurt at first.

That was the worst part.

It was just his hand, warm and certain, the hand that used to hold mine in elevators.

"You're going to sign by Friday," he said, very quietly. "Or I will make you very small, Pam."

"I'll make sure no building in this city rents to you. I'll make sure the hospital hears what you're like."

"Let go."

"Say you'll sign."

I looked at his face.

I'd loved that face for eight years, and it had nothing in it I recognized.

Then I looked past him at the dish rack by the stove.

The cast-iron skillet stood on its edge, still wet from breakfast.

I stepped on his foot as hard as I could with my heel.

He yelped, and his grip opened for half a second.

That was all I needed.

I grabbed the skillet by the handle and swung it into his shoulder.

It rang.

He staggered into the coffee table and my whiskey glass hit the floor.

"You crazy bitch!"

"Get out!" I screamed it, and kept screaming it. "Get out! Get out of my house!"

Doors opened up and down the hall.

The old woman from 4C came out in her robe, holding her cordless phone in the air.

The couple from 4A stood in their doorway with their cell phones up, filming.

Colin looked at them, at me, and at the skillet.

I held it in both hands, shaking, and I didn't lower it.

"The key," I said.

He dug it out of his pocket and dropped it in my open hand.

"Everyone in this building works for my family," he said, soft and ugly, so only I could hear.

"You think any of them will say a word about tonight?"

"I will," said the old woman from 4C, from the hall, in a voice that could stop traffic. "I've got it on speed dial, sweetheart."

Colin walked past her without a word.

I locked the door behind him and pushed the couch against it.

Then I sat on the floor with the skillet on my knees and cried for a while.

At eleven, Ivy arrived with a new deadbolt from the twenty-four-hour hardware store and a bag of fries.

"You hit him with the Lodge?" she said, after I told her.

"The Lodge."

"Your grandmother's skillet."

"It has a dent now."

"That is a very good dent," Ivy said, and she held the screwdriver up like a toast.

We installed the lock together, badly, laughing too loud, and I slept on the couch with the new key under my pillow.

In the morning I picked up my bag and opened the door.

A white sheet of paper was taped at eye level, with a strip of blue tape on each corner.

NOTICE OF NON-RENEWAL. YOU ARE REQUIRED TO VACATE THE PREMISES WITHIN THIRTY DAYS.

At the bottom, in black ink, was the name of the company that owned my building.

Hargreave Residential.

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