No Matter, You Don't Have to Wait for Me novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: The Pizza Table
The ballroom held twelve round tables, a string quartet, and a wide screen above the stage.
On the screen was slide two.
It showed a card table in a bare apartment, a pizza box, and three smiling men.
I stood at the back of the room in a green dress, with a glass of water, and looked at it.
"Are you all right?" Donovan asked at my elbow.
He was in his navy suit with the jacket buttoned, working, with a radio at his belt.
"I'm fine. Go be a general manager."
"I'm on the floor if you need me."
"I know where you are."
I did.
I had known the whole evening, without looking.
Gemma sat at the head table in the green coat from the hotel, next to Dario's mother, who wore black and held her chin up.
Dario's father was not there.
Sergio stood by the far wall with his hands in his pockets, and Sal sat alone at a table by the kitchen door.
Dario took the microphone at eight.
He looked pale and well groomed, and I thought, he has rehearsed this.
"Thank you for coming," he said. "Most of you know me as the founder of a company. Tonight I want to tell you something that isn't in the deck."
The room settled.
"I have a sister. Her name is Gemma Fontana, and she is sitting at my table. She is my father's daughter, and for eight years I kept it from my mother."
A reporter near the front began to write.
"I did it because I made a promise to my father. I thought it was loyalty. I thought I was protecting my family."
He paused, and I heard the quartet's cellist shift in her chair.
"I protected everyone," Dario said. "I'm here to say that was a mistake."
It was a good speech. It was almost honest.
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