The System Admitted Its Mistake, So I Offered Him a Divorce novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: What He Wanted

Lorna called the family together at four.

Twelve Holloways sat around the long table in her family room, and Jarrett's lawyer sat at the end with his leather folder.

I sat beside Rafe.

Nobody looked at me except the aunt who had been looking since the wedding.

"The footage is clear," Jarrett said, and his voice shook just enough. "I take no pleasure in it. But the clause says the marriage must be real, and a marriage built on a stunt is not real."

"Then annul it," said a cousin from the far end.

"Dissolve it quietly," said an aunt. "Before the board hears."

Do not stand up, I told myself.

I stood up.

Rafe's hand closed on my wrist and pulled me down.

Then he stood himself.

"Sit down, Rafe," Jarrett said kindly. "You're upset."

"I'm not upset. I'm about to be very clear."

Twelve faces turned to him.

"My wife did not trap me," he said. "She stood on a chair and I said yes before she finished the sentence."

"You said yes because of the clause," the aunt said.

"I said yes because I'd wanted her for fifteen years."

Nobody breathed.

"I told everyone she wasn't my type. I said it at her twentieth birthday, to a friend, with her at the next table. It was the stupidest thing I've ever said, and I said it because I was a coward."

I stared at him.

"She planned her way into my life for a month," he said. "I watched her do it. I let her, Jarrett. I held the door for every one of her schemes."

"Rafe, that is not..."

"I didn't need a clause. I needed her to say the word first, because I never could."

He sat down.

The family room was silent.

Lorna lifted her cane an inch off the floor and put it down again.

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