My Husband's April Fool's Joke Came True novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Ten Minutes

He was waiting at the end of the dock when I got back.

It had started to rain, a cold, steady drizzle off the lake.

He stood in it with no jacket and his hands hanging at his sides.

I parked the truck, slammed the door, and walked down the boards until I was standing in front of him.

"Five years," I said.

"Yes."

"I had a speech ready in the truck," I said.

"It's gone."

"Then ask me anything," said Terrence.

"Why?"

He took a breath.

"Because I can't lie to you," he said, "so you're going to get all of it, and you won't like it."

"Good," I said.

"Start."

"Prescott stopped paying in the first month," said Terrence.

"After the wedding."

"He'd promised you before it, and I heard him promise, and then he'd got what he wanted."

"Four years ago in December, Brightwater sent our father's office a final notice that the account was behind."

"I answered it, because I was in the building."

"I went down there the same afternoon and paid every dollar owed."

"Out of the money Dad had just handed me, and I've paid it every month since."

"And he found out, and he laughed."

"He said, let me keep telling her it's me."

"He said it'd keep you in line."

The rain ran off the ends of my hair.

"And you agreed," I said.

"I didn't agree," said Terrence.

"I didn't say no."

"It's the same thing, and I know it's the same thing."

"You knew what he was doing," I said.

"You knew he was using it on me."

"I knew," said Terrence.

"You stood there at your own desk and let him use my mother's heart on me, for five years."

"I did."

My voice had gone high and tight.

"Why?"

He looked at me then, directly.

His eyes were red from the weather, or something else.

"Because if I told you, you'd leave him," said Terrence.

"And if you left him, you'd have looked at me and asked why I'd done it."

"And I didn't have an answer I could say out loud."

"That's the truth."

"I was a coward, Kristen."

"I wanted you to be free, and I wanted to be the reason, and I wasn't brave enough to be either."

For a moment I couldn't speak.

"So you let me think I was trapped," I said.

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