Backstabbing Friend's Self-Inflicted Shame novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Thursday

The boardroom at Haldane Home has a long walnut table my father built himself, and on Thursday morning seven directors sat around it with the video on the wall.

It was the clip of me on the stage.

Tate had paused it on the frame with the bed in it.

"I'm not showing this to embarrass anyone," he said, standing at the head of the table with one hand on the back of my chair. "I'm showing it because you should all see what the company has been dealing with."

"Greer is not well. I say that with love."

I stood in the doorway with Rafe a step behind me.

I had come in so quietly that no one had noticed, and Tate was still talking.

"She has been under terrible strain since her father died, and last Friday she broke down in front of the dealers."

"I didn't break down," I said. "I answered a text."

Seven heads turned.

Tate's smile held for exactly as long as it took him to find another one.

"Greer. Honey. You're supposed to be at the lake."

"I changed my mind."

I walked down the room and sat in my own chair, and he had to take his hand off it.

Rafe took a chair against the wall and opened a notebook on his knee.

"Who's that?" asked the director who always asked.

"An advisor," I said. "He doesn't speak unless I ask him to."

The chair of the board, a small grey man who had known my father forty years, cleared his throat.

"Greer, we have a motion in front of us. It asks us to relieve you of your duties for ninety days on medical grounds, with Tate as acting CEO. I don't enjoy this."

"Then don't do it."

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