Desperate Housewife? No, I'm Billion-Dollar Revenge novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Hawthorne Lobby

Dean got out of his car before I had the car seat unclipped.

"Claire. Stop. You can't just leave with the baby."

"I can," I said. "I did."

I lifted Hazel's seat from the back of the Honda, and he walked beside me across the garage with his hands in his pockets, in the voice he used on clients who were about to hang up.

"I've been thinking about it," he said. "I was out of line at the hospital. I was exhausted. Come home. We'll sit down and fix the ledger."

"The ledger is fine," I said. "I sent you an invoice."

"That's a joke."

"It's payable on receipt."

He laughed once and stopped.

The glass doors of the Hawthorne Hotel slid open for me.

It had marble floors, a lobby that smelled of lilies, and a front desk with three clerks in navy jackets.

A young woman with a name badge looked up and smiled the real smile of someone who has been told to expect you.

"Ms. Harlan. Welcome. Your suite is ready, and Mr. Ingram asked me to tell you the nanny is upstairs with the crib."

Dean was at my shoulder.

"Whose name is the room under?" he said to the clerk.

"Tarrant Freight, sir."

"Tarrant," Dean said.

There was no pause. That was what I noticed afterward. There was no pause at all.

"As in Tarrant Freight? The trucking company?"

"It's my mother's family," I said. "My grandfather started it."

"I thought he drove a pickup."

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