The 23rd Deletion Bride novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Guest List

A year after the first gala, I climbed the steps of the Harborview Hotel with my daughter on my hip.

They were the same brass-railed steps, wide and shallow, under the same awning.

I stopped on the third one.

Cullen stopped beside me and said nothing, and did not take my arm.

I looked down at the pavement for as long as I needed.

Then I went up the rest of them in my own shoes, at my own speed.

Harbor was five months old and wore a green velvet dress and a frown.

She had her grandfather's chin.

She had pulled a bobby pin out of my hair on the way and was gnawing on it with great concentration.

Hattie stood at the top of the steps with her headset on and her red lipstick perfect.

"You're four minutes late," she said.

"I changed a diaper in a taxi."

"Magnificent. Come in. There's someone at the door who wants to meet you."

A young woman stood behind the check-in table with a clipboard.

She wore a nervous smile and a name badge that said VOLUNTEER.

I stopped in front of her, and my throat closed.

"Good evening," she said. "Name, please?"

"Linnea Carrick."

She turned a page.

She ran her pen down a column.

It took a moment, and I heard all of it.

"Carrick," she said, and looked up, beaming. "Table One. Welcome, Ms. Carrick."

"Thank you."

"And Mr. Stroud, and Miss Harbor." She bent toward my daughter. "You're on the list too."

Harbor took the bobby pin out of her mouth and held it out to her, with great solemnity.

The young woman took it and bowed.

Cullen made a small, muffled noise beside me.

I put my hand flat on the table, very quietly, to steady it.

"Is something wrong?" she said.

"No," I said. "Nothing at all."

The ballroom was gold and white, with four hundred seats and a stage at the end.

It was the same ballroom where Dalton had once told his guards to remove me.

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