Phoenix Of Ruin: My Second Life Comes With A Better Man novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Wager

Two weeks after the banquet, the Sleridge Business Council held its charity dinner at the Hartwell Grand.

Two hundred and fifty people sat at round tables under the chandeliers.

Leigh's table was near the stage, with Howard at her left and Conroy at her right.

Blaine's table was at the back, beside the kitchen doors.

Somebody on the seating committee had a sense of humor.

Blaine waited until the soup was cleared and the speeches had started.

Then he stood up with a glass in his hand and tapped it with a spoon until the room looked at him.

"Forgive the interruption," he said, with a gentle laugh. "I'd like to say something to my wife."

Every head turned.

Leigh set her napkin down.

"Leigh and I have had a difficult month," Blaine said. "She has been staying with her family. Some of you have seen the videos. I'm sure you're all thinking the same thing."

He paused, to let them think it.

"I'd like to say that the Aldrich family has been very kind to take her in. They're good people. They always have been."

He smiled at Howard.

"But everyone here knows Howard cut her off three years ago, when she married me. One banquet doesn't change that. A grandfather who can forgive a girl for one weekend can ignore her again by Christmas."

A murmur ran across the tables.

Howard's hand tightened on his cane.

"I think this is a lovely act," Blaine said. "But it is an act. Leigh isn't the Aldrich heir. She has no shares, no title, and no seat on any board. She's a woman who left her husband to play princess for a month, and when her family gets tired of her she'll be at my door."

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