Chapter 21: The Signing

Hallie's POV

I didn't read the divorce that night.

I read the first page, and the last, and I put the envelope in my bag with the rose on top of it.

"Not tonight," I told him. "Tomorrow I'm busy."

"I know," said Declan.

At ten minutes to ten on Saturday morning, the Draycott atrium held three hundred people and every camera in Ohio.

A long table stood on a platform under the glass dome, with a contract on it, and a pen, and a pitcher of ice water.

Garrison stood behind the table.

Camille stood beside him in white, holding her phone up at arm's length.

"Hello, everyone," she told the screen, bright as a bell. "We're live. Say hi to the Draycott and Ashworth families."

Dorothea walked up the aisle on her cane, with the attorney in the camel coat and Bea and my father behind her.

I walked on Declan's arm, because I had started it.

The lawyer's seat at Garrison's elbow was empty.

I looked at it, and my chest hurt.

"He isn't here," I whispered.

"It's nine fifty-two," said Declan.

"What if he doesn't come?"

"Then we say it ourselves, and it takes longer."

Garrison waved us up to the table with his usual gracious hand.

"Declan," he said. "Mrs. Ashworth. Dorothea, you honor us. Shall we?"

He held out the pen.

Declan looked at his watch.

At nine fifty-nine, he took a folded letter from his jacket, and put it down on the contract, over the signature line.

"I resigned as chief executive of Ashworth Construction one minute ago," he said, clearly, for the cameras.

"My grandmother holds the office until the board names someone else."

He looked at Garrison.

"She has read this contract. She will not sign it."

"I do not sign it," said Dorothea pleasantly. "I do not sign anything with a man who keeps other people's mortgages in a drawer."

The room made a long, ugly sound.

Garrison's smile stayed exactly where it was.

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