The Butcher Fiancé, My Saving Angel novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Tea at Two

She plays the loving wife in Kenneth's kitchen, finds a forged consent form, and Lillian names the exact week of her pregnancy.

Kenneth was in the kitchen at two in the morning with the kettle on.

He had taken off his tie and rolled his sleeves.

"There you are," he said. "The app said the Meridian hotel."

My heart slammed once and went quiet.

Quincy had sewn the disc back into my clutch himself and given me the lie to carry.

"I couldn't sleep," I said. "I went to the spa. They stay open all night."

"At midnight."

"I needed air, Kenneth. You told three hundred people before I'd told my own mother's grave."

His face softened at once.

He crossed the kitchen and set a hand under my elbow.

"I'm sorry. I got carried away. I was so proud of you."

I let him lead me to the stool.

I let him put a cup of tea in my hands.

I let him kneel and press his cheek against my stomach, and I stared at the top of his silver head and thought, this is the hand that paid for the room.

"Hello, little one," he said into my dress.

I smiled so hard my teeth ached.

"Eat something," he said. "You're pale."

"I'm fine."

"You're carrying my child. You don't get to be fine."

He had said those exact words at the gala, and the room had laughed.

This time I laughed too, because the other choice was to scream.

He walked me upstairs and tucked the blanket under my chin.

He kissed my forehead and stayed until my breathing slowed.

When the door closed, I put my fist in my mouth and shook for ten minutes without making a sound.

Then I got up, because I was done being his patient.

His study was locked.

I knew the code, because he had made me practice it once, in case of an emergency.

*Your birthday*, he had said, smiling. *Nobody else would guess it.*

I stood in front of the keypad with my finger above it and thought, he has been a careful man for a long time.

The door clicked open.

On the desk, under a glass paperweight, lay a thick folder.

*Cord Blood Banking Consent*, the cover said, in the private doctor's neat hand.

It was already signed on the last line.

By me.

I had never seen the paper.

I held the page up to the lamp.

The signature was close to mine, but the loops were wrong, and the date was last month.

He had practiced it.

He had been planning this for longer than I had known I was pregnant.

My knees went soft, and I locked them.

I photographed every page with my phone, the consent, the doctor's invoice, the schedule of draws, and one memo with a column of numbers that meant nothing to me.

I put the folder back exactly as I had found it and set the paperweight on its mark.

I was out of the room and back in bed when the first gray of morning came through the curtain.

The front door opened at eleven.

"Suzie!" Lillian sang. "I brought croissants."

She came in with her hair in soft curls and her hand already out for mine.

She kissed my cheek, and she smelled like the lavender soap she had used since she was nine.

I had taught her to braid her hair.

I had held her at her mother's funeral.

"Sit, sit," she said, pouring me coffee. "Decaf. I asked the cafe."

"You're too good to me."

"You're my sister." She squeezed my hand. "Kenneth's been so worried. I'm so glad you're home."

"Home," I said.

"He says the baby's measuring perfectly."

"Does he?"

Her eyes shone.

"I told Preston he should be nicer to you. I really did. He's only awful because he feels guilty."

"Does he?"

"He says it's just a fight between old friends."

I took a bite of the croissant, and it tasted of nothing.

"Preston didn't call me old friends the day he married you," I said.

"Suzie, please." Her lip trembled. "I've apologized a hundred times. I was twenty-two. I was in love."

"I was in a cellar."

"I know." She wiped her eyes with a napkin. "I know, and I hate myself. I do. But I'd do it again, because I love him, and I'd never forgive myself if I didn't tell you the truth."

She was so good at it.

She had been that good since she was five years old, crying on a rug in my parents' house, and I had never once doubted her.

"Suzie," she said, and put her hand on my stomach.

Her thumb found a place and pressed.

"Thirteen weeks and two days," she said, smiling. "I'm counting down with you."

I did not move.

Only Kenneth and his doctor knew the exact day.

I had not told her.

I had not told anyone.

She saw my face, and her smile went on a half second too long.

"Kenneth tells me everything," she said.

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