I Fled the Wedding, the Obsessed CEO Lost His Sanity novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Under the Paper

Harvey laughed, once.

"It's not yours," he said. "Daphne drew it. She told me herself."

"Take it off the wall."

"Cassia"

"Take it off the wall, turn it over, and peel back the brown paper."

He got up off the floor slowly, holding the desk.

He lifted the heavy frame off its hook with both arms and laid it face down on the leather chair.

The backing was brown craft paper, yellowed at the corners, with a gallery sticker in the middle.

"Under the sticker," I said. "In pencil."

His fingers shook so badly that he couldn't get a grip.

I took the letter opener from the desk and slit the paper across the top.

It peeled back.

On the board beneath, in my handwriting, in soft grey pencil, were four things.

The date.

The letters P.H.

A line that said, Joliet, Marsh Point, Dad's light.

And in the bottom corner, a tiny paw print, drawn with a single quick pencil stroke, the way I have signed every drawing since I was nine.

Harvey looked at it.

He looked at it for a very long time.

"My father took me to that lighthouse every Sunday when I was a kid," I said. "He died the winter before I drew that. It's the last place I remember him being happy."

My voice shook, and I hated it.

"She sold it to you for four hundred thousand dollars with her name on the card."

Harvey sat down on the arm of the leather chair.

"I paid her," he said. "I looked her in the eye and I thanked her."

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