The One He Never Held novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Lunch Toast
After a 2 AM fight with his girlfriend, Damian comes home to Jo, who tells him to buy Hailey a necklace. At Sunday lunch Hailey announces a pregnancy, Damian stays silent, and Jo takes off her ring. In the driveway he catches her wrist and says it can't be his.
At two in the morning, the mattress shifted and woke me.
Damian was sitting on the edge of the bed in his coat, still wet from the street.
His jaw was tight. His eyes were on the floor.
"You're back early," I said. "Did you fight with Hailey?"
He took a long time to answer. Then he nodded once.
I sat up and pulled the blanket over my knees.
"She's twenty-five and she's used to getting her way," I said. "It's a tantrum. Buy her the necklace she keeps pointing at in that shop window. She'll forgive you by Tuesday."
He turned his head and looked at me.
It was a long look, and I could not read it.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again and took off his coat.
I lay back down on my side of the bed. He lay down on his.
A hand's width of cold sheet stayed between us, the same as every night for four years.
I fell asleep fast.
I always did.
On Sunday I was in the Deverill family kitchen by eleven, checking the roast for lunch.
Hailey found me there in a pink sweater, with her eyes already red.
"Jo." She threw her arms around my neck. "You're the only one who never judges me."
"I judge you a little," I said. "Sit. Eat a cracker."
She sat on the counter stool and talked for ten minutes about her father, her shoes and a fight with her trainer.
I asked how her father was sleeping. I always did.
She said he'd been pacing the study at night. I nodded and made her tea.
When she went to find a mirror, I took the small black notebook out of my apron pocket and wrote two lines in it.
Damian walked in as I closed it.
"Grocery list?" he said.
It was what he always said. I smiled and put it away.
Lunch was at one in the big dining room.
Lucille sat at the head of the table in her pearls. Lionel Sorensen, the company chairman, sat on her right, carving the roast with a silver knife.
Two board members and their wives filled the other seats. The housekeeper stood by the sideboard.
Damian sat across from me. He had not looked at me since breakfast.
Hailey sat on Lionel's other side, and she kept touching her stomach.
"Jo, dear, hold my water glass a second," she said. "My hands are shaking."
I took it.
Lionel tapped his wine glass with his knife.
"A small announcement," he said. His voice was warm and slow, the voice he used with everyone. "My daughter has made me the happiest man in Chicago. Ten weeks along."
Hailey burst into tears and covered her mouth.
The wives gasped. One of them clapped.
I looked at Damian.
He looked at the tablecloth.
"To the Deverill and Sorensen families," Lionel said. "Finally one."
Glasses rose all around me.
Lionel turned his kind face toward me.
"Nothing changes for you, Joanna," he said. "You'll always be family. Always."
Lucille leaned across and patted my hand.
"Be gracious, dear," she said quietly. "Everyone can see how well you're taking it."
Everyone was watching me.
The board members. The wives. The housekeeper. Hailey, with wet eyes and a hopeful face.
And my husband, who still said nothing at all.
I put down Hailey's water glass.
I slid the plain gold ring off my left hand and set it beside Lucille's plate.
It clicked against the china. The whole table heard it.
"Congratulations, Hailey," I said. "I mean that."
Then I stood up.
"Joanna, sit down," Lucille said.
"No, thank you," I said. "I'm going home."
I took my bag from the chair and walked out through the front hall.
The cold hit my face on the front steps. I got as far as the gravel drive.
Footsteps came fast behind me.
A hand closed around my wrist and turned me around.
It was Damian.
His hair was wet with sleet, and his chest was moving hard.
He had not touched me once in four years. Not a hand on my back at our own wedding.
His fingers were shaking.
"Jo, listen to me," he said. "It can't be mine. I haven't touched her in fourteen months."
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