He Chose Her, So I Faked My Death novel · Chapter 18 of 32

Chapter 18: The Head of the Table

I had not set foot in the Radcliffe estate in five years.

The iron gates still had the same crest, and the gravel still crunched the same way under the tires.

My father was waiting in the dining room.

He sat at the head of a table that seated twenty, and nineteen chairs were full.

Uncles, aunts, cousins, the family lawyers in a row along the wall.

Somebody had called them all, and I knew who.

"Imogen," my father said.

My father was sixty-four, silver-haired and straight-backed, and he had not stood when I came in.

"Father."

"You've been dead for two weeks, and you look well."

"Thank you."

"Sit."

"I'll stand."

Jasper stopped just inside the doorway, with his back to the wall.

My father's eyes moved over him and away.

"Your brother is in a cell tonight because of you," he said. "You made a fool of this house on television. You humiliated your husband."

"My husband married me to use my name."

"Husbands often do."

A cousin snickered.

I put my phone on the table and pressed play.

"The chairman's signature," said the woman's smooth voice, "is already on file from the old purchase."

The room went still.

"He thought it was a shipping lease," said Preston.

I turned it off.

"That is Preston Ames," I said. "Four years ago, buying blood diamonds. Your signature is the guarantee on the shell company. Radcliffe Holdings backed a mine where forty-one people died."

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