He Hid Me for Twelve Years, Now the City Knows My Name novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Chair in the Hallway

Harrison's POV

The board chair slid a second sheet across the glass table on Wednesday, and I read it standing.

It was a motion to remove me as chief executive, effective on the Friday vote, for conduct harmful to the company.

Nine members sat around the table.

Two would not meet my eyes.

"It's not personal," the chair said. "The Singapore sponsors have seen the train video."

"Which part of the video is the conduct?"

"The part that makes the news."

"I told a woman on a train that I loved a person I've loved for twelve years."

"You said girlfriend," the chair said. "You didn't say love. Perhaps next time."

I put both palms flat on the table.

"Then I'll resign," I said. "Today. Effective now, I leave the company and Kate stays in my life, and you can have your clean file."

Lorna stood so fast her chair rolled back.

"Harrison, no," she said. "Don't. Give me the week. I'll talk to Sylvia."

"My mother controls the vote."

"Which is why I'm the one who should talk to her."

"I'll ask her myself."

The room went quiet.

For a moment I heard my own sentence, and I thought, I have never once said that out loud.

In twelve years I had never asked my mother a single question about Kate.

I had asked Lorna.

Lorna took my sleeve and walked me to the window, her voice dropped.

"Sylvia is in Arizona," she said. "She's at the clinic for her hip, and the doctors have taken her phone. No visitors, no calls, no stress. If a word of this reaches her before Friday, you know what her heart does."

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