Second Chance Vows novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Look at Me

Cosima did not answer for a long moment.

Then she reached up and took off the dark glasses.

She folded them and held them in her hand, and she looked Tiffany in the face.

"Yes," she said.

Tiffany's lips parted.

"How long?"

"Longer than you would like," Cosima said. "You will keep it to yourself until Friday."

"Why would I?"

"Because you owe me one hour of silence," Cosima said, "and I'm collecting it."

Tiffany stood very straight on her father's porch, with her chin shaking.

"I'll keep it," she said at last. "I want to be there when he finds out."

"So do I," Cosima said.

We went down the steps without another word.

In the car, Cosima sat with her hands in her lap and the glasses in her fist.

I drove for ten minutes and did not trust myself to talk.

Then I pulled into the lot behind the Fairchild warehouse, where nobody was working on a Sunday, and turned off the engine.

The envelope was in my jacket.

My father's lawyer had drawn it up the first week, and I had never shown it to her.

I took it out and laid it on the dashboard between us.

"What is that?" Cosima asked.

"The marriage contract. One year, with a release clause." I kept my eyes on the windshield. "Either of us can end it any day, with no reason and no cost."

"Perry."

"I want you to read the clause, and I want you to hear me out."

"I am listening."

"You can see now," I said. "You saw Tiffany's face, and you saw my father in his rented suit. You saw me knock a glass out of my father's hand."

"I saw all of it."

"You are a Kingsford. You can have any man who walks into a room. I only had one thing to offer you, and it was that I did not laugh."

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