The CEO's Unwanted Wife novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Her Parents' Names

"A monument is a thing that holds still," I said. "My parents never did."

Dalton sat across the café table with the grey coat folded beside him.

He did not argue.

"So what would they have wanted?"

"Dinner," I said. "Come to my place Saturday. Agnes and Becca arrive tomorrow, and nobody gets to say a speech without a plate in front of them."

He blinked.

"You're inviting me."

"I'm inviting the man who made a fund with my parents' names on it. I want to ask him some questions. There'll be cheese."

He nodded slowly.

By Saturday the apartment smelled of melted gruyère and wine, and Becca was on my kitchen floor with a fondue pot between her knees.

"It's an unholy amount of cheese," she said reverently. "I've lost track of time. I may live here."

"You have a flight on Monday."

"Flights are a social construct."

Agnes sat at the head of the little table with her cane propped against her chair, wearing a green scarf the color of her ring.

She had brought a sealed tin of tea in her bag and a look in her eye I had come to dread.

"Dalton," she said as he came through the door with a bottle of wine he'd clearly agonized over. "Sit down. You look like a coat rack."

"Gran."

"Don't Gran me. Sit."

He sat.

For a while it was only cheese and bread, and Becca telling a long story about the lab freezer that made even Dalton's face loosen.

Then I put down my fork.

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