The Ex-Change novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Monitor Room

Jude's POV

Vanessa made me laugh for twenty minutes, and the whole time I was counting how many things she did right.

She remembered I hate cilantro.

She told the story about the goat at our wedding, the one that ate the florist's hat, and she told it better than I could.

She had been my wife for six years, and she was still the best company I had ever known.

That was the part I had never forgiven her for.

"Van," I said, under the lantern, with a forkful of risotto halfway up. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"Eleven months ago. You never said who."

Her smile held perfectly.

"Jude. Not tonight. We're on camera."

"The camera is forty feet away."

"It has a very long lens." She reached across and squeezed my wrist, warm and sorry. "I told you I'd answer you someday. When it's over. I swear, you'll hear it from me."

I had been waiting eleven months to hear it from her.

I smiled and finished my risotto.

But I knew a few things Vanessa did not know I knew.

Eleven months ago I came home early from Berlin and found a card on her dresser.

It had a hotel crest on it.

There had been two words on the card in slanted blue ink.

Thank you.

It had been signed with a single letter, and the letter was a C.

I had never forgotten the loops of that C.

On the first day of casting, in a Roman office, I had watched a handsome actor sign the show's release form.

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