Phoenix Of Ruin: My Second Life Comes With A Better Man novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: A Hundred of You
That night Leigh walked into the Hartwell Grand ballroom with her hand in Jonas Hartwell's.
Four hundred guests saw it at once.
Conversation stopped near the doors and the silence spread across the room.
Conroy stood by the champagne tower with a glass halfway to his mouth.
"He is holding her hand," he said to nobody. "In public."
Howard, in the front row, tapped his cane twice on the floor and looked pleased with himself.
Jonas leaned down to her ear.
"They're staring."
"They've stared for weeks. Now they know why."
"You're not nervous."
"Are you?"
"Yes," he said, and tightened his fingers.
She laughed.
It was the charity night for the new nephrology wing, and the stage at the far end held a giant screen and a podium.
The first donor speech had barely begun when the doors at the back banged open.
Blaine Pemberton stood in them, unshaven, in a creased shirt with no tie.
He held a black hard drive in one fist.
Two security men moved at once, and Jonas lifted a finger to stop them.
"Let him walk," he said quietly. "He's come this far."
Blaine crossed the whole ballroom with four hundred people watching.
He stopped three feet from Leigh and looked at her hand in Jonas's, and his face twisted.
"So that's what it is," he said. "That's why you wanted out."
"No," Leigh said. "I wanted out because you let me die."
Murmurs rose.
Blaine flinched at the word.
"I don't know what that means," he said. "You keep saying it."
"I know you don't."
"Leigh, I found it. I have proof that Talia lied. All of it." He held up the drive with a shaking hand. "Every plan, every message. She filmed herself paying those men."
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