I Signed Away Eight Million to Leave Him novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Vote

I hadn't been inside the Fitzroy Harbor Hotel since the night of the gala.

On Monday at five to ten I walked through the lobby beside Corbin, and every head turned.

A bellhop I'd trained dropped a luggage cart.

The ballroom doors were open.

They'd set a long table on the dance floor, right under the center medallion, with seven chairs and seven water glasses.

The stage was still there at the far end, bare now, with a single standing microphone left on it.

I didn't look at the stage.

I looked up, once, at the medallion. At the gold rim. I knew what was written inside it.

That helped.

The directors were already seated. Six old men and Honora, in gray silk and pearls.

Brennan sat at the far end, with his hands folded and his eyes on the table.

He looked like he hadn't slept since the porch.

Honora saw me and her smile froze.

"This is a closed meeting," she said. "She has no business here."

"She's named in your agenda," Corbin said, pulling out his chair. "Personal conduct. My conduct is her."

The chairman was the oldest man at the table, nearly ninety, with hearing aids in both ears.

He looked at me over his glasses for a long time.

"I remember you," he said. "You were on that scaffold for a year. You yelled at my grandson for touching the wet gilding."

"He touched it twice."

The chairman wheezed. It was a laugh.

"Five minutes," he said. "After Honora."

Honora stood up.

She had the six photos in a leather folder. She laid them out down the table.

"Three years," she said. "Three years, under my roof, with my son's fiancee. I sent him to London to spare this family a scandal. I said nothing. I protected all of you."

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