The Registry Said I Was Single, So They Assigned Me My Husband's Boss novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Longer

Willa's POV

He didn't answer right away.

The garden was dark except for Deborah's flashlight, which he had set on the stone, pointing at the maple.

"Because I thought you'd say no," he said.

"To what?"

"To me. I was the man with the dead dog who paid in cash and couldn't say his own name." His voice was low and rough. "You were kind to Walter, and I told myself that was all it was. Then Spencer's name came across my desk."

"And you thought I'd walk into your office."

"I thought you were still half in love with him."

I stared at him.

"You thought what?"

"You'd been married to him for eleven months. You kept a copy of the certificate in a drawer. You would not leave that man's house until a stranger told you to." He rubbed his face. "I thought if I walked in and said it, you'd choose him to spite me. So I went to the registry instead, where nobody could tell you what to feel."

"And the year?"

"I took the year because it was the only part of you I could ask for. I figured I would spend it making you glad you stayed, and on the last day you'd file out."

"That's the stupidest plan I've ever heard."

"Deborah said 1987."

I laughed, once, and it hurt, and then I wasn't laughing.

"I felt nothing for Spencer the night of the dinner," I said. "I told you that in the kitchen. I told you because it scared me."

"I remember."

"I think I'd felt nothing for a lot longer. I just hadn't looked."

I took my hand out of my pocket.

In it was a small stiff card with a paw print in the corner.

He saw it, and his whole face went slack.

"You took it off the corkboard," he said.

"In April, the day you left it. I hung it back up twice." I turned it over in my fingers. "I've kept it in my scrubs pocket for six months, and I couldn't tell you why. I told Dina it was for luck."

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