Lover on Loop: Her Cruel Revenge Game novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Other Side of the Table

Greer's POV

Darren kept a guest room made up for me, with fresh towels and a vase of peonies.

I had been sleeping in it for nine nights, and I had learned his house the way I learn a greenhouse after a frost, by walking it and noting what had died.

He never locked the study.

He locked nothing, because in two years I had never once looked.

On day forty-six he went to the gallery at ten, and kissed my hair at the door, and said, "Rest. You're doing so well."

I waited until the sedan left the drive.

The study smelled of cedar and cold coffee.

Third drawer of the desk, under the lease for the gallery, was a folder with Asa's name on the tab.

I read it standing up.

It was an insurance policy.

It insured my best friend's right hand, and the person it paid was Darren.

One million four hundred thousand dollars, on permanent loss of use.

The first page had been signed eight years ago, the week Asa's first show sold out.

I turned to the back.

There were nine claim forms, each one blank, each one dated the day after a break.

I put my hand flat on the desk and waited for the room to stop tilting.

He had sat in Asa's kitchen on the night Benji died.

He had held me through the funeral.

I took out my phone and photographed every page, and put the folder back exactly as I had found it, the lease on top.

Then I opened a voice memo and pushed the phone down into my apron pocket, the one I'd worn to his house on purpose.

That evening he cooked, which he only did when he wanted something.

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