Everyone Knew She'd Leave Me but Me novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Loading Dock

Marlene didn't raise her voice, which was how I knew she meant it.

"The loading dock behind your building," she said. "Two minutes. Or this memo goes to your CEO and to every reporter who covers your little company."

She rolled up the window before I could answer.

The dock was a concrete lip behind the office, with a camera over the roll-up door and a smell of old cardboard.

Marlene stood at the top of the steps with her phone in one hand and her pearls straight.

"Let's be adults," she said.

"You called me a gigolo in a hallway in front of my coworkers. Pick another word."

"I'll say it again if you like."

"Your house payment has been two thousand one hundred dollars a month for two years." I kept my hands at my sides. "My account. Your daughter pushed the button."

Her mouth went thin.

"That was a loan to family."

"Nobody told me about the loan."

"Nobody tells a man like you anything. You wait to be told."

She came down one step.

"Here is what happens now," she said. "You stay home tomorrow. You tell that woman to get back on a plane. You withdraw your fraud report, and you say you were upset."

"Or?"

"Or I play this for the press. 'Kestrel executive stalks a pregnant bride and invents a wife to ruin her wedding.' I have a lawyer who owes me a kindness. Your company's name will be in the first paragraph."

"The wife is real."

"I know she's real, Warner."

She said it flatly.

"I read the invitation list. I looked up Dean's cousin the night she wrote back. A husband who has a wife is not the end of the world. Men have pasts. A daughter with a baby and no ring is the end of the world."

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