The CEO's Unwanted Wife novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Driver's Seat

I did not run.

I walked down the center aisle of the ballroom with four hundred people turning their heads to follow me.

Nobody stopped me.

A waiter pressed himself against a pillar to let me pass.

Behind me I heard Stanford say "Sit down, everyone, please," in the voice he used on boards.

I heard one set of footsteps leave the room after me.

The service corridor behind the kitchen smelled of bleach and fried onions.

I took the stairs down to the parking level in a green velvet gown that fifty years ago had belonged to a woman who always knew what to do.

I did not know what to do.

I knew only that I would not hear this in a room with chandeliers.

The garage was cold and nearly empty.

The black car waited in its usual place with the driver standing beside it, a paper cup in his hand.

He saw my face and put the cup on the roof.

Dalton came through the stairwell door and stopped ten feet away.

His tie was pulled loose, and his hands hung open at his sides.

"Linnea."

"Whose car was it?"

"Mine."

He said it at once, with no breath before it.

My knees did something strange, and I put my hand on the cold hood to stay upright.

"Say all of it," I said. "Not in a hallway. In there."

I pointed at the driver's seat.

The driver looked from me to Dalton.

"Sir?"

"Keys," said Dalton.

The driver held them out in a flat hand.

Dalton took them.

For six years he had let other men drive him to funerals, board meetings and the airport.

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