He Hid Me for Twelve Years, Now the City Knows My Name novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Let Her In

Harrison's POV

At six o'clock on Saturday, I stood beside the coat check in the lobby of the Ashdown Grand, in a rented tuxedo that fit worse than the one I'd ruined.

The doors would open in an hour.

The girl behind the counter had a very straight spine and a pencil behind her ear.

"Mr. Ashdown," she said, "you're allowed to wait in the ballroom."

"I'm waiting here."

"May I ask why?"

"Someone asked me to be here," I said. "I told her I'd be early."

In my pocket was a guest ribbon, pale green.

I had asked the florist for it myself and carried it around for two days.

It was the kind every invited guest wore.

None of them had ever put one on Kate.

Across the lobby, the guard who had walked Kate out in January stood stiffly by the revolving door.

He had asked me on Thursday whether he still had a job.

"Keep it," I'd said. "Just never walk a woman into the street because she looks wrong."

"No, sir. I won't."

"Walk her to the car, and ask who she is."

Now the first guests were arriving early, to be seen waiting.

A woman in a long silver coat gave me a bright public smile and a look at the empty counter.

I realized I'd been standing at a coat check for twenty minutes holding nothing.

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