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Chapter 13
publish date:
2026-10-31 01:37:34
Latest chapter
Until Death, Then Divorce. Chapter 15
#Naomi Camille Draven's office was on the fortieth floor, and by seven in the evening the whole city lay below the glass like something she owned. "Naomi. Sit." She did not stand. She wore a pale cream suit, and her smile arrived a second too late. "Thank you for moving your evening. I know it was short notice." "It's no trouble." I sat and kept my hands in my lap. Hold your face still, Aveline had said. I had been repeating it to myself for forty floors. A large screen on the far wall played the evening news with the sound turned low. Camille did not look at it. She looked at me. "I will be honest. I did not ask you here about the skincare brand." Of course you didn't, I thought. You moved a meeting to tonight because you are desperate. On the outside, I gave her a polite, puzzled frown. "Oh?" "I asked you here about Aveline." I had practiced a puzzled look, a tired look and a sad look in the car. I chose sad. "Aveline Calloway," I said. "I haven't spoken to her in seven y
Until Death, Then Divorce. Chapter 14
#AvelineRonan told us to stay, so we stayed. Naomi gripped my hand so hard that her nails left marks."Is that someone I brought here?" she whispered."I don't know."I watched Ronan walk down the path with his hands loose at his sides. At the gate, the guard did not open anything. He only nodded. A black car rolled through slowly, and four men in dark suits stepped out of it. They were not strangers. I had seen two of them outside my hospital door.Ronan spoke to the tallest one for less than a minute. Then he came back up the path alone, and I let out a breath I had not known I was holding."It's ours," he said. "Come inside, both of you."We went through the garden doors into the little sitting room where Evelisse took her tea. Naomi stood in the middle of the room, looking at the velvet curtains, the marble fireplace and a painting that was probably worth more than her flat."Aveline," she said slowly. "This is not a hospital.""It is. Partly.""A hospital does not have a paintin
Until Death, Then Divorce. Chapter 13
#Aveline I dialed Naomi's number with my thumb shaking so badly that I got it wrong the first time. I deleted it and started again. It rang three times. Then a careful voice said, "Hello?" "Naomi." Silence. I could hear a street behind her, a car passing, someone laughing far away. "Who is this?" "It's me. It's Aveline." The silence changed. When she spoke again, her voice was low and tight, the way it got when she was holding something in with both hands. "Seven years," she said. "I was your maid of honor, Aveline. I stood next to you in that dress and cried harder than your mother-in-law pretended not to. And you were not even married a full year when you started giving me attitude. 'Rhett doesn't like me going out.' 'Rhett thinks your jokes are inappropriate.' I let it go. I told myself you were adjusting." "Naomi..." "Then you cut me off completely. I sent eleven messages, and you answered none. I stood outside your gate once, in the rain, and a guard told me you were no
Until Death, Then Divorce. Chapter 12
#RhettI had just enough time to push the drawing into my jacket pocket before Celine reached the bottom of the stairs."There you are," she said, looking from me to Lyra. "Sweetheart, why are you out of your room? Come, let's get you something to eat."Lyra stood very still, holding her rabbit by one ear. She did not move toward Celine's open hand."She wanted to show me a school drawing," I said. It was the first lie I had told Celine in eleven years, and it came out smoothly. That bothered me more than the lie."How lovely." Celine smiled at Lyra. "May I see it?""I lost it," Lyra said.For a second, nobody spoke. Then Celine laughed softly and stroked Lyra's hair. Lyra flinched, only a little, but I saw it, and I saw Celine see it."Dinner is at seven," she said. "Your grandmother is coming."My mother arrived at seven exactly, in dark green silk, with a driver carrying a box of pastries for Celine. She kissed Celine's cheek and asked about her ankles, her sleep and her appetite.
Until Death, Then Divorce. Chapter 11
#RhettMy mother came to the house at nine the next morning. She did not call first. She never did.I was in the study with the medical paper flat on the desk in front of me. I had not slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard Lyra whisper, I said it a lot."You look terrible," Victoria said from the doorway. She sat down in the chair across from me without being asked. "Celine told me you were up half the night.""Read this, Mother." I turned the paper around.She did not pick it up. She glanced at it the way you glance at a bill you have no intention of paying."She forged it," Victoria said."Mother.""Think, Rhett. Who knows Aveline better than I do? Eight years she has lived under my eye. If that girl were truly sick, I would have been the first person to see it. I have nursed your grandfather, your aunt, and half this family into their graves. I know a sick person when I see one. They do not walk down my staircase with their back straight and demand five minutes."I opened my
Until Death, Then Divorce. Chapter 10
#AvelineOn the fourteenth day, Lucan came into my room without his tablet. He stood at the foot of the bed with his hands in his pockets, and that scared me more than any scan."Say it," I said."It's almost gone." He laughed, and it came out shaky. "I put your scans next to the ones from the night you arrived, and I thought I had mixed up the files. The big tumor is a shadow. If the numbers hold, you are not going to die."I waited to cry. Instead I sat very still and listened to the monitor, and I thought about a foyer, and a paper that said six months."Thank you," I said.Evelisse made a small sound and then she was holding me so tightly that the stitches pulled. I let her. Alistair stood in the doorway wiping his face, pretending to study the ceiling. Ronan said nothing. He walked out, and I heard him in the corridor, blowing his nose like a man who did not want to be heard.The next morning I asked for a chair in the garden."The doctors want you to rest another month," Eveliss
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