The Night He Chose Her Over Me novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: On the Steps

Gabe's POV

I sat in the truck for fifty minutes with the window down and the engine off.

I could not hear the ballroom from the curb.

I heard the street instead, the tires on wet asphalt and the valet's radio, and a woman laughing at a corner a block off.

I kept my eyes on the glass doors and my right hand pinned under my thigh.

It would not stop shaking.

Cora had told me to wait, and so I waited.

It was the one job I was sure I could do.

At nine-forty the side door opened, and a man came out of it and crossed the sidewalk toward me.

He had no coat, and his tie was pulled loose.

I knew him on sight.

"Hollander," said Dalton Hargrove.

I opened the door and stepped out onto the curb.

He was a few inches shorter than I was, and he stopped an arm's length away, breathing hard.

"You," he said. "You did this."

"I did one thing," I said. "I hit your wife's car. I've told her. What happened in there was yours."

"She played that thing for the whole room."

"She did."

"I'm finished."

"Yes."

His face worked.

He looked at me, and I watched him decide what to be.

When he spoke again, the voice was soft and reasonable, the one he used in rooms.

"You're a practical man," he said. "Let's be practical. There are two reporters in there. Say that she swerved. A woman in a bad state of mind, on black ice, in the wrong lane. Say that you tried to avoid her and could not."

"She didn't swerve."

"Nobody knows that but you."

"She does."

"I'll make it worth your while. I can still get you the fleet contract. I can get you more than the fleet."

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