My Husband Cheated With My Best Friend, So I Took Them Both novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Chair at the Head of the Table

Philippa sits at Juliet's table, favors Roz and gives Juliet until Sunday to divorce quietly or be sold to the gossip pages.

Philippa did not wait for me to open the door.

She had a key. Declan had given her one the year we moved in, and I had never taken it back.

She came into the kitchen with a wrapped coffee cake in her hands and her pearls on.

"Declan, darling." She kissed his cheek. "Rosalind, sweetheart. You look exhausted."

She crossed the whole kitchen and held Roz by both shoulders.

She didn't look at me yet.

"Hello, Philippa," I said.

"Juliet." She nodded once. "I wasn't sure you'd be back."

"I live here."

"Of course you do."

She set the cake on my counter, took a knife from my block, and started cutting it.

I had watched her do this at a hundred family dinners.

I had always thought it was her way of being warm.

"Let's not waste anyone's morning," she said. "I'll say the unpleasant part first, because someone should."

Declan said, "Mom, don't."

"Be quiet, dear."

She put a slice on a plate and handed it to Roz.

"My son and Rosalind are in love," she said. "Anyone with eyes has seen it for a year. I've known since March."

"I know you have," I said. "She told me."

Philippa glanced at Roz with something close to affection.

"Good. Honesty is a relief for everyone."

She turned to me at last, and her face was perfectly polite.

"Juliet, you're a clever girl," she said. "You've had a lovely run here. But you have to see it's finished."

"I have a week to decide that."

"You have until Sunday," said Philippa.

I put both hands flat on the counter.

"I'm sorry?"

"Sunday. By then you will have left quietly and signed whatever my lawyer sends over."

She tilted her head.

"No fuss, no scene. I'll see that you're comfortable."

"This is my house."

"Is it?" She smiled. "Declan drew every inch of it. His father's firm paid for the dock."

"I paid for the house with my advance for *Cold Water*," I said. "My name is the only one on the deed."

"Then you'll keep the deed," she said, and waved a hand.

"But you will give my son his freedom. Rosalind is a nurse, she is kind, she is good for him. She would make a proper wife."

Roz had gone completely white. She stood there with the plate in her hand and her eyes on the floor.

She said nothing.

I waited for her to say something. Anything.

She said nothing.

"And if I don't leave by Sunday?" I asked.

Philippa took a napkin from her handbag and wiped the knife.

"Then the Burlington Courier's Sunday column will run a piece I've had written," she said. "It's called 'The Happily Married Author's Secret.'"

She folded the napkin.

"It won't name you. Everybody in this county will know who it is."

"You'd do that to your own son's wife."

"I'd do it to the woman who is keeping my son from his happiness."

I looked at Declan.

He was standing very still behind his chair with his hand on the back of it.

"Declan," I said. "Say something."

"Mom," he said. His voice was small. "Maybe we could talk about this later."

"We are talking now."

"I mean..." He looked at me, and then at Roz, and then at the floor. "Let's all just calm down."

Calm down.

It was the first thing he had said to me in this house that I could not forgive.

"Philippa," I said. "You are in my kitchen."

"I'm in my son's kitchen."

"You are standing in the kitchen of a woman who writes thrillers for a living."

I let that sit.

It was a bluff, but her smile slipped. "I want the key," I said. "The one you let yourself in with. Put it on the counter."

"Declan gave me that key."

"And I am taking it back."

She looked to her son for help.

He didn't give it.

Slowly she opened her handbag, took out a brass key on a pearl-white ribbon, and set it down on the counter.

"Sunday," she said. "I'm not a cruel woman, Juliet. I'm giving you time."

"Out," I said.

She picked up her gloves. At the door she turned to Roz, and her voice went soft and sweet.

"Come to dinner on Tuesday, sweetheart. I'll make your favorite."

Roz did not answer, and Philippa left.

The car started in the drive. Gravel crunched, then silence.

Nobody in the kitchen spoke.

Declan finally said, "Jules, I'm sorry, I froze. I always freeze with her."

"I know you do," I said. "That's what scares me."

I walked out of the kitchen and onto the porch, because I could not breathe in there.

The cold hit my face. The lake was white to the far shore.

The door opened behind me.

Roz came out in her cardigan with no coat on.

Her teeth were chattering.

She stood a few feet from me and put her arms down at her sides.

"Do it," she said.

"Do what?"

"Slap me. You've wanted to since last night."

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