From Secret Desire for My Stepbrother to Reality novel · Chapter 17 of 32
Chapter 17: The Hearing
The hearing room held ninety-two people.
By eight thirty, there were two hundred in the hall outside it.
By eight forty-five, the apprentice's petition people had filled the stairs down to the street.
So they propped the doors open.
Kath wasn't there.
She'd told me the night before, at the counter, with her coat already on.
"I'm filing something tomorrow morning," she'd said. "With the attorney general. It's mine, and it's legal, and I'm not telling you what's in it, so nobody can say you helped."
"Kath."
"Turn your phone off at the hearing," she'd said. "You'll want to."
I'd turned it off at eight fifty.
The district board sat at a long table at the front.
The investor sat in the first row on the left with a lawyer and a man holding a foam board.
He was in his vest and loafers.
We filled the rest.
Jem sat beside me in a clean blue shirt instead of the jacket. My mother had ironed it.
Pete wore his ferry cap until the chair asked him to take it off, and then he held it on his knee.
My mother sat very straight, with her red glasses on her nose.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of From Secret Desire for My Stepbrother to Reality are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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