He Married His Hometown Neighbor, Then Begged for a Second Chance novel · Chapter 32 of 40

Chapter 32: Maya Falls

The boardroom on the fortieth floor had the same long table, and the same grain in the wood.

Evan stood in the doorway at nine on Thursday morning, and looked at it.

Nine chairs.

Seven of them were already filled.

He had a visitor's badge on a clip, signed in by the chair himself, with a line of ink under *Purpose of visit*.

*Witness. At his request.*

Ethan sat at the head of the table, in the dark suit, with a thin folder in front of him.

He stood when Evan came in.

It was a small thing, and nine people saw it.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Green," he said. "There's a chair at the end."

"Thank you."

Evan sat.

Maya was halfway down the left side, in cream, with her sleek bob and her bright mouth.

She smiled at him warmly.

"Evan! I'm so glad you're well."

"Hello, Maya."

"The board is voting on the chair this morning." Her voice was soft with concern. "I'm sorry it had to be today. The divorce, the photographs, the rumors. It's all been very hard on Ethan, and hard on the company."

"I'm sure it has."

"Maya," Ethan said. "You have the floor first. Present your motion."

She stood, gracefully.

She spoke for six minutes, about stability, and the example a chairman sets, and a marriage that had lasted fewer than twelve months and ended with a public scandal and a hospitalisation.

She was good.

She did not use one ugly word.

At the end she said, "I move that the board withdraw its confidence in Mr. Ross, with real regret."

Nobody spoke.

"Thank you," said Ethan. "I have a motion of my own, before we vote. May I?"

"Of course," said the oldest board member, a bald man with half-moon glasses.

Ethan opened the folder.

He drew out four sheets.

"In this room," he said, "Mr. Green was dismissed from this company on the strength of a log.

"It showed his Director account logging in from my home network at 5:04 a.m., two minutes before the wiper. I sat at this table and looked at the wood."

He stopped.

His voice was perfectly flat.

"I've since had an outside firm look at my own building."

He laid the first sheet on the table and slid it down.

"Harbor Crest keeps its own router logs. They run to the minute. At 5:04 on that morning, nothing in my apartment logged into Ross Group's network with the Director account.

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