After a Year of Silence novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Hate and Heat

We read Gwen's email in the back of Quentin's car, with the engine running and the rain loud on the roof.

It was four paragraphs long.

It said that Harper Linwood had hidden her marriage to the CEO for three years in order to receive promotions that were never earned.

It said she had pushed him in front of witnesses to cover a guilty conscience.

It said that a photograph, attached, proved they were still conducting an affair in company property.

The photograph was from the elevator camera.

My back was against the mirror, his hands were in my hair, and my eyes were closed.

"She didn't delete it," I said.

"She told me she did."

"She tells you a lot of things."

He did not argue.

"Every review of mine has a different name on it," I said. "Miles signed them. Six different directors signed them."

"I'll put that in front of the board tomorrow morning."

"Not you. Me."

"Harper."

"It's my work, Quentin."

He looked at me for a long moment and nodded.

"Yours," he said.

My hands were shaking.

I had been holding the letters in my lap the whole drive, and I put them down on the seat.

"Where are you staying?" I asked.

"The company apartment on Pier Street. It has a bed and a lamp."

"Take me there."

He did not ask why.

The apartment had a bed, a lamp and a duffel bag on the floor, and nothing else.

I stood in the hallway with the door still open behind me, dripping on the boards.

I was so angry that I could not decide where to put it.

I was angry at Gwen and angry at the board and angry at the lamp.

And I was angry at him, at the way he stood three feet away from me in his wet shirt with his hands loose at his sides, waiting for me to decide.

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