He Banned a Baby in Our Contract, Then Found His Daughter novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Terms

Millie writes her own contract on the back of his letter, Nan Winnie brings soup, Verna calls her the arrangement girl, and in the garage Millie sees Lorcan counting his own pulse.

By ten on Sunday morning my terms were stuck to his fridge under a magnet shaped like a lobster.

I had written them at one in the morning on the back of the lawyer's letter, in pencil, and then gone over them in pen.

There were three.

One, Sadie is nobody's bargaining chip, and nobody tells her anything about us.

Two, nothing happens between us at night unless I start it.

Three, clause seven is struck out in your own hand, the day you can tell me why you wrote it.

Lorcan read them standing at the counter in a grey sweater, with his coffee going cold.

He read them a fourth time.

"One is fair," he said.

"Sign it."

He signed it.

"Two." His mouth moved. "Two is a lot to ask of a man."

"It's three words to ask of a woman who left you in May."

I took his left hand and turned it over so the pen would sit right.

I laid my thumb on the inside of his wrist, where the pulse is, to hold him still.

It was going fast.

I told myself that was me.

"Sign it," I said.

He signed the second.

Then he looked at the third for a long time.

"I'll sign that one when I can," he said.

"Then it's not signed."

"No." He put down the pen. "It isn't."

I took my thumb away.

At eleven the front door opened without a knock.

A very small woman came in with a covered pot held out in both hands.

She had snow-white hair pinned up, a cardigan with a brooch, and sharp blue eyes that missed nothing.

Nan Winnie Hann was ninety-two years old, and she looked at me for exactly as long as it took to cross the hall.

"There she is," she said. "I told him in July. Go down to Trinity Bay and see that girl. He said he'd think about it."

"I did think about it, Nan."

"Four months of thinking and one cheque. Give me that child."

She put the pot on the stove and held out her arms, and I put Sadie in them without deciding to.

Nan Winnie tucked the baby against her cardigan and studied her face.

"The Hann chin," she said. "And the Hann temper. Look at her. She's already planning something."

Sadie grabbed her brooch and pulled.

"Good girl," said Nan.

It was a boiled dinner, salt beef and cabbage and turnip and a pease pudding in its cloth.

I was setting the table when the door opened again.

This time there was a knock after.

The woman in the hall had a silver bob and pearl earrings, and a smile that stopped at her teeth.

"Lorcan, dear," she said. "I heard you had company."

Verna Hann was his late father's brother's widow.

Lorcan had told me, in the first week of the contract, that she chaired the family trust.

He had said she had never once been wrong in her own hearing.

She looked me over from my braid to my boots.

"So this is the arrangement girl," she said.

Nobody answered.

Nan Winnie's hand went still on Sadie's back.

Lorcan was standing by the stove with a dish towel in his hands, and he said nothing at all.

I waited.

I waited for as long as it would take a man to open his mouth.

"I'm Millie Dwyer," I said. "I run the Co-op in Gannet Tickle. I signed a contract I could read, and I left it when I chose. What do you do, Mrs. Hann, besides come to other people's dinners?"

Verna's smile held.

"And the child," she said. "I imagine the Trust will want a test, dear. For the records. One does have to be careful."

"She has his eyebrow."

"Eyebrows are a thing people have."

Nan Winnie hit the table with the flat of her hand, hard enough to jump the cutlery.

Sadie startled and then laughed.

"Lorcan," said his grandmother, without turning her head. "Pour her tea."

He put down the towel and poured me a cup.

His hand was steady.

He did not look at his aunt, and he did not look at me.

I understood that he had been taught for thirty years to let Verna finish.

I drank the tea.

I sat through the whole dinner with my back straight.

Nan fed Sadie bits of potato.

Verna talked about the Trust to the salt cellar.

When the pots were washed and the old woman had gone up to lie down, I went down to the garage for the stroller.

The light was on.

Lorcan stood at the workbench with his back to me and his head down.

Two fingers of his right hand were pressed under his jaw, against his throat.

His lips were moving.

He was counting.

His face in the dark window glass was grey, and his left hand held the edge of the bench so hard the knuckles showed white.

I stood in the door with the stroller.

He didn't hear me.

I backed away very quietly, and went up the stairs, and told myself he had only been angry.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend