The Billionaire's Rescue novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Other Baby

Agnes stayed.

I hadn't given her a choice.

I had pulled the suitcase out of her hand in the chapel and said, "You're not going anywhere alone tonight. We aren't done."

Torben made up the guest room next to mine without being asked.

For two days my mother and I moved around each other in that glass house.

We didn't talk about it.

She made tea and I made dough, and we both pretended it was a normal week.

On the third morning I came into the kitchen, and she was standing at the window with a dish towel in her hands.

"I made the call you asked me to," she said. "To the donor center. They'll send the blood-type paper Monday."

"Thank you."

"I'm not going to pretend it's wrong, Halley."

"I know."

"I just wanted you to hear that I understand."

"You can't ask me to forgive you yet, Ma."

"I'm not asking for anything." She folded the towel in half. "I'm only here because you let me be."

I wanted to hug her so badly my arms ached.

I wanted to scream at her until I lost my voice.

So I rolled out the cardamom dough instead, and my tears fell into the flour, and neither of us said a thing.

The doorbell rang at ten.

Torben was at his office in the city, and the housekeeper was out getting groceries.

I wiped my hands and went to the door in my sock feet.

A woman stood on the step in a cream coat, with no driver behind her and no photographer on the road.

Long dark hair.

Grey-blue eyes.

A tired mouth.

She was taller than I'd thought, and thinner, and she had a white paper bag in one hand.

"Ms. Brandvold?" she said. "I'm Margot Hartwell. I'm sorry to come without calling. I couldn't find your number."

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