Love After Layoffs novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Screens

The clerk at the front desk had a face like a locked door.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I can't discuss any guest's suite."

"I'm not a guest. I'm a witness."

"To what?"

"To nine minutes ago."

Before he could answer, a hand closed gently around my elbow.

"Janine."

Brooks stood behind me in his black tuxedo, with his glasses pushed up and his hair still damp from a rushed shower.

I pulled him around the corner into a corridor lined with gold-framed mirrors.

"Savannah is the woman from the lobby," I said.

"What?"

"The camel coat, the scarf, the bangle. I watched her put a hotel key in Justin's hand twenty minutes ago and kiss him."

He did not say anything.

I watched it hit him, one slow piece at a time.

"The photograph," he said. "The cut. The phone call."

"All of it."

"She called me darling for two years."

His jaw worked under his beard.

"She's about to be announced as your fiancee," I said.

"Not if I get to a microphone first."

From the ballroom came the clink of a glass and a man's smooth voice.

"Friends," said the voice. "If I might have a moment."

Brooks went white.

"That's her father."

We got to the ballroom doors as the applause started.

Savannah's father stood on the stage beside a podium, with his gold pin shining and a microphone in his hand.

Alvin sat at the front table with both hands folded over his cane.

He had not agreed to this.

I could see it in the set of his shoulders.

"Tonight," said Savannah's father, "it is my honor to announce that my daughter has accepted Brooks Ketterman's hand."

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