The Seventh Time novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Kitchen Table

"You wanted me to leave," I said.

Killian flinched.

"Yes."

"You slept with your father's assistant, so I would leave."

"Yes."

"And you couldn't just say it?"

"Say what?" His laugh was a dreadful, cracked sound. "Say it to you? With you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you're looking at me now. Like I'm someone you're still sorry for."

I took the key out of my fist and set it on the table between us.

My grandmother's table was scarred with sixty years of homework and canning jars.

I put my hand on it to steady myself.

"Tell me how it happened."

"Romy."

"Tell me. I'm not going to scream. I want to know what the man looked like who did it."

He told me in a flat voice, staring at the grain of the wood.

After the sixth break, in August, he had come home to the penthouse and found he couldn't stand in the rooms.

He said Delphine had been the only person in the office who talked to him as if he weren't his father's son.

In September she stayed late, and so did he.

She came up to the penthouse to bring him a file.

He did not tell me it had been an accident, because it hadn't been.

"I knew what I was doing," he said. "I knew every time. I kept thinking, if she finds out, she'll finally go. She'll be free of us. And I won't have to be the one who asks."

"Asks me to what?"

"To leave the Ashworths. To leave me."

"That isn't yours to decide."

"I know that now."

"You decided for me. That's the entire problem, Killian." My voice finally shook. "You and your father decide, and I show up on Friday. That's what I am in your family. A person who shows up."

"That's not what you are to me."

← Chapter 3 · All chapters · Chapter 5 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend