Chapter 6: Take Her Home

I turned my head until my mouth was next to Constance's ear.

"No," I said, and I said it loud enough for the next table.

A woman in a lavender blazer looked up from her cake.

"I'm sorry?" Constance said, with her smile still on.

"You offered me two hundred thousand dollars to say my baby has no father. I would like everyone to know the number."

The lavender woman put her fork down.

Constance's hand left my elbow.

"You're overwrought, dear."

"I'm not," I said. "Say it again with the microphone on."

For the first time, the smile slipped.

It was a small slip.

Her lips pressed into a thin line, and then she turned and walked back to the head table with her spine very straight.

I walked out of the ballroom past two hundred women who did not look away.

In the parking lot I leaned on my car and shook until my teeth hurt.

Nobody followed me.

That was the strangest part.

I had expected a scene, and instead I had won one.

On Monday morning I was cleaning a patient's teeth when the front desk buzzed me.

"Willa," the receptionist said in the careful voice people use for bad news. "Your fiancé is here."

"He's not my fiancé."

"He says he's here to take you home."

I took off my gloves and walked out front with my mask still hanging from one ear.

Dalton stood in the waiting room with his hands in his pockets and a bag from my favorite bakery.

Three patients sat in the chairs, pretending to read magazines.

"Hi, love," he said.

He said it loudly.

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