The 23rd Deletion Bride novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Fund

"Did you fake the fall, Mrs. Amory?"

The camera light was in my face, and the reporter's microphone was an inch from my mouth.

I could have panicked.

Instead I felt, very clearly, that I was done being polite on the sidewalk.

"There were four hundred guests at that gala," I said. "Ask any of them."

"Some say..."

"Ask the hotel security guard who saw her grab my wrist. Ask the police, who charged her at two in the morning."

"Ask the doctor who heard my baby's heartbeat after I fell down five stone steps in my dead mother's dress."

I said each thing slowly, so that the camera had time to catch it.

"She put a video online an hour ago. She said she barely touched me."

"She said it from a car, free, with her makeup on."

The reporter's mouth opened.

"Ask her why she's free," I said.

Dalton had gone very quiet behind me.

Hattie turned the wheelchair and said flatly, "That's all. She's on bed rest."

Cullen fell in beside us, and the crowd parted.

Behind us, a single violin started up again, thinly, and then stopped.

Hattie's loft smelled of fresh bread.

I lay on her couch with my feet up and a blanket over my knees.

Hattie called every lawyer she had ever catered for.

Cullen sat on the arm of the armchair across from me with the box on his knees.

"You said you'd tell me," I said.

"I did."

"Now's good. I'm calm."

"You're not."

"I'm lying flat. That counts."

His mouth moved.

Then he opened the box and took out a thin blue folder, and set it on the coffee table where I could reach it.

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