One Night Stand novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Say It

Nobody spoke to me.

A woman at the nearest table lifted her phone, saw Eleanor's eyes on her, and put it face down.

Preston came toward me with his hand out.

"Callie, I'm so sorry. I never meant it to land like that."

"Don't," Eleanor said.

She had crossed the floor with her cane tapping every step, and she stopped between us.

"Grandmother, I was only trying to protect the family."

"Then sit down and protect it quietly."

He sat.

Eleanor took my elbow and walked me out through the side doors, past three hundred people who found their plates very interesting.

In the cloakroom corridor she let go.

"Take the car," she said. "My driver will take you anywhere you like."

I reached for the clasp of the pearls.

"Leave them on."

"Eleanor, I lied to your grandson."

"You told him less than he wanted to hear." Her mouth flattened. "He has not been to a room like this without me in thirty years. He will not know what to do with his hands. Go home, child."

I did not know which home she meant.

I went to the Chestnut Hill house first, and Dottie was waiting in the front hall in her cardigan, because the news had reached her phone before I reached the door.

She did not say a word.

She opened her arms, and I stood in them for about a minute with the pearls digging into my collarbone.

Then we packed.

Otto woke when I lifted him, and said, "Mama, you smell like a party."

"Go back to sleep, baby."

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