He Chose Her. I Chose Divorce novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Ben's POV: The Bell
Ben's POV
I stood in the back row of the visitors' gallery in my one decent jacket, with Joanne gripping my sleeve.
Below us was the trading floor, loud and crowded, with a stage at one end and a brass bell on a stand.
Three screens as tall as a house hung behind the stage.
The Tamblyn Route logo glowed on all three.
Three thousand employees watched on a feed from the tower, and every news camera in the city had come to get the first-day price.
Maggie sat in the front row in a green dress.
She hadn't looked back once.
I had memorized the back of her head by now.
Russell Tamblyn came to the podium at nine-thirty.
The room hushed in waves as it noticed him.
He put down no notes, and he did not look at the cameras.
He looked at the front row.
"Good morning," he said. "Before we ring that bell, I have to say something, and I'd like you to hear all of it."
Somebody in the gallery coughed.
"Eleven years ago, my wife wrote the first version of this company at a kitchen table."
The room was silent.
"I put my name on it. I took hers off. I did that on my mother's advice, and I let it stand because it was easier."
Joanne's nails dug into my arm.
"Her name is Maggie Rooney," Russell said. "She isn't Mrs. Tamblyn anymore, and she is the reason any of you has a job."
A murmur ran down the floor and broke into noise.
"There is more," he said, and he raised his voice to cut through it. "Five years ago I learned I probably couldn't have children. I hid it from her. I let her think the fault was hers for five years."
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