System Husband: One Divorce and I'm Gone novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Torn in Two

Nolan's POV

Margot found me in the garage at two o'clock with the plane in my hand.

She stood in the side door with Millie behind her and her keys in her fist.

"Did you take it?" she asked.

I put the plane down.

"Take what?"

"Two hundred thousand dollars. Jocelyn's check. Brody says you took it on Tuesday and that it's why you signed so fast."

Behind her, Millie said, "He didn't."

"I'd like him to say it."

I reached into my jacket and took out the envelope.

I held it open and tipped it, and four pieces of check slid onto the bench.

They were soft at the edges from three days in my pocket.

Margot looked at them for a long time.

She put her fingertip on one corner, where the first zero was.

"You tore it," she said.

"Twice."

"Why did you keep it?"

"So you'd see it," I said. "If anybody told you what he told you."

She pressed her hand to her mouth.

Millie said, "I'll be in the truck," and left without another word.

The door clicked shut.

"I took it for a day," I said. "In my head. Just to see what it felt like to be paid for it."

"For what?"

"Standing there while you did it." I leaned on the bench. "You want to know the thing I haven't said? Here it is."

"Say it."

"Eight months, Margot. I cooked a dinner every Sunday and left it in the fridge with your name on the lid. And every Sunday you posted a restaurant table in another city, and his name was in the tag. I counted the posts. I never got a caption."

She didn't flinch.

She stood there with her wet eyes and let me say it.

"You told me nobody could know about the divorce," I said. "You said tell nobody, not even Millie. Then he stood on the courthouse steps with a camera and two million people watched me take off my ring."

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