They Sold Me in My Sister's Place, So I Took Their House novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Her Terms

Eden sets her terms for a one-year marriage with Cormick, and when her brother tries to drag her home, Cormick calls her his wife in front of the hotel lobby.

"I'd say you should ask me what I want first," I said.

Cormick Eberly didn't smile. He nodded once and waited.

The front doors behind him stayed shut. Nobody had come out after either of us.

"Your family owes you nine million dollars," I said.

His eyebrows went up, scar and all.

"Yours owes me nine million dollars," he said. "I'm only the one holding the notes."

"Then you're the only person on that lawn they're afraid of."

"Possibly."

"I have no money, no car and a coat." I held the sleeve out to show him. "I need somewhere they can't walk into. You need a wife by autumn."

He went still.

I had not known that last part from this life. I had known it from the last one, from the night he told me why he'd agreed to Colette sight unseen.

I watched him decide not to ask how I knew.

"Who told you that?" he said instead.

"Your grandfather's rule. Everyone in Greenwich knows an Eberly son can't take the board chair unmarried."

It wasn't an answer, and he heard that it wasn't.

"What are your terms?" he said.

I had worked them out in the last hours of a life I wasn't supposed to remember.

"One year," I said. "Separate wings of the house."

"Agreed."

"You don't touch me unless someone is watching."

"Agreed."

"Neither of us asks about the other's past."

That one made him hesitate.

"Why?"

"Because mine would sound insane."

"Fine." He rubbed his thumb along the scar. "Anything else?"

"I keep my job at the print shop. I keep my own name. And you never sign anything for me. Not once."

He frowned.

"Why would I sign for you?"

"Because that's what the men who love me do," I said. "They sign, so I don't have to read."

Something crossed his face then, quick and unreadable.

"Nothing will be signed for you, Miss Lowry. Unless you put the pen in my hand."

"Eden."

"Eden." He said it once, slowly. "I'll send a car for you in the morning. There's a hotel on the green, and my assistant will have a room booked before you reach it."

"I can walk to the station."

"It's eleven degrees colder than it looks. Take the car."

I took the car.

Russell found me at seven the next morning.

I was in the hotel lobby with a coffee I hadn't touched, and he came in through the revolving door carrying my old duffel bag.

Pierce trailed behind him with his hands jammed in his hoodie.

"There she is," Russell said, loud enough for the desk clerk to hear. "The runaway."

"Give me my bag, please."

"Of course." He dropped it at my feet. "Your things. Dad had Pierce pack them. We threw out the rest."

"What rest?"

"The junk in your closet. Papers, photos." He shrugged. "Mom's old albums, all of it."

The word Mom hit hard. He had never once called my mother that.

"That's mine," I said.

"You walked out. Everything you left is the family's."

Pierce didn't look at me. He stared at the carpet, and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

"Pierce," I said. "Did you pack the photo album?"

Pierce swallowed. "It's in the car."

"Then get it."

"He won't," Russell said pleasantly. "You want it, come home and say sorry to Dad. Tonight. In front of the guests, same as you insulted him."

"I didn't insult him. I said no."

"Same thing in this family."

A hand settled on my shoulder, so lightly that I thought it was the clerk.

It wasn't.

Cormick Eberly stood behind my chair in a navy overcoat, with snow on the shoulders.

He didn't look at me. He looked at Russell.

"Mr. Hadfield," he said. "You're in my lobby."

"Your lobby?"

"I own the hotel's building." He said it flatly. "Pierce, bring the album in from the car."

Pierce was already moving.

Russell's smile went stiff.

"Cormick. Hey. This is a family matter."

"It stopped being one at seven this morning, when you came to my wife with a threat."

I turned all the way around in my chair.

"Your wife?" Russell said.

"By Friday," said Cormick. "At the courthouse. You're welcome to attend."

Then he finally looked down at me.

His eyes were steady, and there was a question in them he wasn't going to ask.

Everyone in Greenwich was afraid of him. I wasn't.

"You're not afraid of me," he said quietly, as Pierce came back through the door with the album held to his chest. "Everyone else in this town is."

"No."

"Why not?"

I took the album from Pierce's hands and held it against my own chest.

"Because I've already met the man they said you were," I said. "It wasn't you."

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