Playboy's Secret Wife novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Boardroom

The boardroom on the forty-second floor had a table long enough to land a plane on.

Twelve people sat around it in dark suits.

I walked in at nine o'clock sharp, in the same navy blazer, with Lucas a full step behind me.

I'd asked him to stay a step behind.

He had agreed with a look that said he'd regret it.

Every head turned.

Chad sat at the far end with a laptop and a folder, and Eleanor sat to his left in a grey suit, with her hands folded.

Trent stood against the wall with a tablet.

Of course he did.

"Mrs. Hargrove," Chad said.

"How good of you to join us."

"Take any seat you like."

I took the one at the foot of the table, opposite him.

It was the chair for the chairman's guest.

Lucas sat beside me.

Nobody said anything about that.

"We'll begin," Chad said.

He spoke for ten minutes.

He was smooth, and sorry, and very reasonable.

He said the family had loved Lucas through some difficult years.

He said no one doubted the bride's good heart.

He said the question was simply whether a woman who couldn't stand upright could consent to a marriage, and whether a company of this size could be run by a man who might not be legally married at all.

He played the clip.

This time I watched the faces instead of the screen.

The woman who would later second the motion winced at my laugh, and then looked away from it.

Someone coughed.

An older man near the middle of the table, with a white beard, looked at his hands.

Chad closed the laptop.

"I move that the board suspend the chairman's voting authority pending the Nevada ruling," he said.

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