Chapter 6: Table Nine

Harcourt Bank's chairman ate dinner at the same restaurant every Thursday, at table nine, with his back to the wall.

He was seventy, small and pink, in a bow tie the color of old wine.

He looked at Max and me over the rim of his glass.

"Tell me how you met," he said.

Max and I had rehearsed this in the car, and we both opened our mouths at the same time.

"At a charity auction," Max said.

"On the ferry," I said.

The chairman waited.

"At a charity auction," Max said again. "On the ferry."

"A charity ferry," I said.

The chairman's mustache moved.

"It was a long ferry," Max added.

I kicked him under the table, and he took it like a gentleman.

The chairman set down his glass.

"I like a couple that lies badly," he said. "It means they have nothing serious to hide."

Max laughed, and so did I, and for a moment it was easy.

Then I felt the room change.

It was like a draft, and I knew where it came from before I turned my head.

Kieran had been seated at table ten.

Alone, in a dark suit, with his back to the same wall and one empty chair across from him.

He had not been seated by accident.

Table ten was two feet from ours, and the restaurant had been fully booked for a month.

I turned back and told myself not to look again.

Max had seen him too. His smile went hard at the corners.

"Chairman," Max said brightly. "You know Kieran Saxon."

"Of course, of course," the chairman said, and waved a small pink hand. "Saxon! Come and join us."

"No," Max and I said together.

Kieran rose anyway, with his glass.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Remarried After I Secretly Divorced the CEO from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.