After a Year of Silence novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Plus-One

The seventy-fifth anniversary gala filled the ballroom of the Harbor Grand with three hundred people.

I wore a green dress Quinn had called "aggressively expensive," and the ring was on my finger where everyone could see it.

Quentin stood a half step behind me in a black suit.

He had not touched me since we left the car.

When I wanted him to, I would take his arm, and he knew it.

"Breathe," Miles said at my elbow, holding a glass of club soda.

"I am breathing."

"You're doing it very hard."

I laughed, and it helped.

From across the room, the board chair lifted her glass to us.

The staff had taken four long tables near the stage, and the senior dispatcher wore a bow tie.

The analyst waved at me with both hands.

For the first time in three years, I walked into a company event as Harper Linwood, and as Quentin's wife, and nobody was whispering.

Then the doors at the far end opened.

A woman in a red coat stood in the doorway with a man in a gray suit beside her.

She had cut her hair shorter.

She was smiling.

It was the same smile, warm and wide and first into any room, and every muscle in my body locked.

"Is that Gwen?" someone behind me said.

"That's her."

"She's been fired. How is she here?"

"She's on the list as a guest of a director," the chair said, appearing beside me. "I asked security to let her in."

I turned to stare at her.

"You did what?"

"I have nine directors and a reporter in this room, Harper. If she makes a scene, I would like it done where everyone can see it. I'm sorry. I should have asked."

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