I Signed Away Eight Million to Leave Him novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Down the Family Tree

I walked back into the bar with the photo in my hand and put it down on Corbin's laptop.

He read Honora's line under it.

He took off his reading glasses and set them on the bar very carefully.

"She's had this for a week," he said.

"Margaux took it. From somewhere across the road."

"I'll make it go away." He was already reaching for his phone. "The company has lawyers who do nothing else. I'll buy the photo, the camera and the photographer."

"No."

He stopped.

"I'm not paying to hide something I'm not ashamed of," I said. "I kissed you. I'm not sorry. If she wants to put it on a billboard, she can pay for the billboard."

The bartender, behind us, set down a glass with a small, approving click.

Corbin looked at me for a long moment.

"You said it didn't happen."

"It didn't happen in the sense that it's not happening again."

"That's not a sense. That's not a thing words do."

"It's the sense I'm using."

He put his glasses back on and looked at the photo again, at my hands on his face.

"It's a good picture," he said.

"Shut up."

"I'm just saying. She has an eye."

Nothing came of it for two weeks.

Honora didn't call. Margaux posted flowers, cake tastings, a countdown to June twentieth.

I worked. The hotel came back room by room, and I didn't think about it once I'd closed each door.

I thought about the photo in my drawer, and the man at the end of the bar.

Ivy came up on the bus every Sunday and slept in my singing bed.

"Your ghost keeps opening my window," she said.

"There's no ghost. The frame's warped."

"Don't fix it. He's the only man up here who pays attention to me."

"Corbin pays attention to you."

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