Riot novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Sunday Dinner

At the Ambrose table Rhys demands a blood test and Joss sets her terms; the lobby video goes online and she loses her job.

Honor sent a car for me on Sunday, and the driver got out and opened my door before I could reach it.

He was a gray-haired man in a driver's jacket, and he told me his name was Art.

"Mrs. Ambrose said to bring you the long way, so you can breathe first," he said.

I almost cried right there in the back seat.

It was the first kind thing anyone had done for me in four days.

The Ambrose lake house had a front door the size of my kitchen.

Honor met me on the steps and kissed my cheek.

"You came," she said. "Good girl. Sit by me, and don't let anyone rattle you."

The dining room held a table for fourteen and nearly a dozen people already seated.

Rhys sat at the far end in a dark shirt with the sleeves pushed up.

He did not stand when I came in.

He did not look away, either.

A blonde woman at his right turned her whole body toward me and smiled with her teeth only.

"So this is the baker," she said. "I'm Sabine. Honor's told me everything."

"Everything about what?" I asked.

"Oh, just how brave you are."

She said it sweetly, and three people at the table smiled into their wine.

Honor put a plate in front of me, a real one, with roast chicken and potatoes and a sauce that smelled like butter.

"Eat," she said. "You're feeding two."

Rhys's fork stopped.

"Don't say that at my table until we know it's true," he said.

"It's true," I said.

"Then you won't mind the test."

"I won't."

"A blood draw. A clinic of my choosing. Monday morning."

"Ry," Honor said softly. "Be kind."

"I'm being fair, Mother. She has been very careful with her facts."

Sabine laughed behind her napkin.

One of the uncles said, "Those girls always are," and nobody told him to stop.

I put my fork down.

"Say what you want to say, Rhys. Not to your mother. To me."

He leaned back, and the whole table turned to watch him do it.

"I want to know why a woman who found out in month two waited until month three to walk into my building," he said. "You had my number from the hotel. You had my assistant's number. You had weeks."

"I told you why."

"You told me you thought I'd want no part of it. That's convenient. You were going to keep my child from me."

His voice cracked on child.

It was small, and he covered it by reaching for his glass.

I saw it anyway.

"You didn't want a child," I said. "You told me so, at the door, with your coat in your hand. No calls, no repeats. I took you at your word."

"And now you want my money for that word."

"I don't want one cent."

Sabine tilted her head. "Everyone says that until the lawyer calls."

"Then let the lawyer call me," I said. "I'll tell him the same."

I stood.

My chair scraped, and the table went still.

"I'll take your blood test," I said. "Monday, any clinic you pick. I'll take nothing else from you. No check, no ride, no apartment. And nothing from your hands either, Rhys, not a door held, not a coat, until you look me in the face and say sorry in front of the same forty people you shamed me in front of."

"That will not happen," he said.

"Then neither will anything else."

Honor reached for my wrist, gently.

"Sit, dear. He's grieving. He doesn't know what he's saying."

"He knows exactly what he's saying," I said. "He was just waiting for an audience."

I sat down because my legs gave out, and not because she asked.

Under the table, I pressed my palm flat against my stomach.

Rhys watched my hand.

Then his eyes went to the ceiling and back to his plate, and he said nothing more through the roast, the salad and the pie.

Sabine's phone sat beside her glass, face down.

It buzzed twice.

She picked it up, read it, and smiled at me over the screen.

"Oh, how funny," she said. "Someone found that little video from the lobby."

My own phone buzzed in my pocket.

I turned it over.

It was Bex: Joss. Don't open Instagram.

A second text came before I could answer.

It was from the bakery owner, the woman who had hired me at nineteen.

Don't come in tomorrow, honey. Customers saw the video. I can't have this at the counter.

Across the table, Sabine turned her phone to show everyone.

My face filled the screen, white and shaking, with a caption in pink letters.

BAKER GIRL TRIES TO TRAP BILLIONAIRE.

It already had two hundred thousand views.

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