Fake Names with Me Love Bombs for Her? Screw This Secret CEO Wife Is Done novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Message

Maisie's POV

"Play it," I said again.

Jerome looked at the phone and didn't move.

"The first part is about me," he said. "It's an apology. It's old business."

"Then skip it."

"Maisie."

"My father talked to you for nine minutes in his last two weeks, and he never said a word to me about any of it." My voice shook. "I'd like to hear his voice. Please."

He sat very still.

Then he moved his thumb across the screen, and a bar jumped ahead, and he held out the phone with the speaker on.

Dad's voice filled the porch.

It was thin and rough, and he was wheezing between words.

"Jerome. Skip what I said before. That's between you and me, and I'll say it to your face if I get another day. This is the part that matters."

I put my hand on the porch rail.

"You know how your father and I started Werner. A garage in Whitehall, a bank loan, and two guys who could fix anything. When Maisie's mother got sick I walked away to look after her and the baby. I never sold my half. Forty-nine percent. Odile told everybody I took a pickup truck for it and shut up. I let her. I wanted her to leave us alone."

He coughed for a long time.

"The shares sit in a trust at the bank. When I die they go to Maisie, and only Maisie, and only if she has the key. I've hidden it where nobody but my girl would look. I told her to bury me in my watch so that Odile would go to the wrong place."

I made a sound.

Jerome looked up at me, and I shook my head.

"Don't," I said. "Keep going."

"Odile won't stop," Dad's voice said. "She'll send somebody. Not the lawyers. She'll send a man to be nice to my daughter. I've thought about it a lot. A man who takes her to dinner and gets her to sign something. Or a man who marries her."

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