Chapter 22: Removed as Chair

Leah's POV

"Turn it off," Ingrid said.

She said it smiling, into the microphone, and her voice filled the room twice.

Nobody in the booth moved.

"Turn it OFF."

The recording ran on without her.

"Midnight, Tobin," said Ingrid's recorded voice. "If she's still hot, you stay with me. Let her wake up and learn who she has."

Four hundred people made one low sound.

I stood very still beside Joel in my green dress.

Every face in the ballroom turned toward me, and then toward the stage.

I felt Joel's hand come down over mine.

"Wait," I whispered.

The next file started.

It was a different night, a different room, and Ingrid sounded relaxed.

"Four hundred and twelve is the number I tell him," she said.

"I bought his father's note for eighty thousand, and I've collected two hundred thirty already."

"Does he know?" said another voice, a man's.

"Tobin doesn't know what day it is unless I text him."

A woman near the front put her hand over her mouth.

On the stage, Ingrid had stopped shouting.

She stood with the microphone in her hand and watched the screen.

The recording played one more clip.

"And Joel gets to keep his dock," said Ingrid's voice, light and fond. "He can watch the offices from the water."

Joel didn't move.

I looked up at his profile.

His jaw was shaking, and he wasn't looking at me.

"That's enough," a man called from the back.

It was the gray-haired CEO from Northline, standing by the bar with his coat already over his arm.

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