I Hid Your Triplets, Why Did They Crash Your Engagement novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Rule

Rafe's POV

The ballroom was empty by eleven, and my mother was still sitting in it.

She had taken off her shoes. I had never once seen her do that in public.

"Sit," she said.

I sat in a gold chair at table two, in the place where Daphne's father had been.

"I paid a woman I'd never met to disappear from your life," my mother said. "I wrote the amount on a check and I felt proud of how clean it was."

"Mother."

"I'm not finished. It took my grandson reading a laboratory result into a microphone to make me look at what I'd done."

She turned her wedding ring around her finger.

"I'm not going to ask you to forgive me tonight. I am going to be at that duplex on Sunday with a coffee cake, and you can tell me if I'm allowed through the door."

"You'll need to ask Margot."

"I know that," she said. "That's what I'm learning."

I kissed her on the cheek. Her face was wet, and she pretended it wasn't.

I went to my office on the top floor and sat on the couch with my jacket still on.

I did not sleep.

I read the first letter again, all four lines, and thought about the closet it had been in.

At midnight the desk phone lit up with a number I didn't know.

"Hello?"

"It's Ivy," said a small, businesslike voice. "I'm on Grandma's phone. Don't tell her."

"Ivy, it's midnight."

"I know. Teddy's asleep. Rory's pretending. Did you win?"

I put my head back against the couch.

"I think so," I said. "I'm not sure that's the word."

"Did Aunt Daph get in trouble?"

I took a moment with that one.

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