He Saved Her Child, Abandoned Ours novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Statement

"I told the board at six this morning," Rafe said to the cameras. "I told them before you could."

Eleven reporters had gone quiet to hear it.

"I have stepped down as chairman of Ashworth Capital until the board decides if I may return. Hallam Court goes on the market this week. The money will go to my daughters, both of them."

A man at the front shouted, "And your wife?"

"My wife owes me nothing." He did not look at me. "She now decides if, when and how I see Tilly. I've put that in writing, and her solicitor has it."

He took a folded paper out of his coat.

He put it into my hand in front of every lens in the lane.

I did not open it.

I didn't need to.

"That is all I have to say," Rafe said. "Please leave the children alone."

He turned and walked back down the lane to his car, and nobody stopped him.

Bridie was waiting inside the gate with her arms folded.

"Well," she said. "That was the first useful thing he's done in a decade."

"Gran."

"I said first. I didn't say last."

We went back into the kitchen, and Rafe's mother was washing cups that were already clean.

I put the paper on the table and read it standing up.

It was a single page, signed and dated.

It said that Rafe Ashworth gave Rhiannon Ashworth sole say over every visit, call and photograph of their daughter, and that he would not contest it in any court.

Nobody had made him write it.

I folded it in four and put it in my back pocket, and my hands were not quite steady.

Twenty minutes later he was in the doorway again.

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