The CEO's Unwanted Wife novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Ask Your Husband

Vanessa climbed the three steps to the stage in her borrowed gown, smiling at four hundred people.

Stanford saw her coming and his hand tightened on the lectern.

"Miss Endicott," he said into the microphone, pleasantly. "Perhaps this can wait."

"It can't, Stanford. I'm sorry."

She reached the lectern and held out her palm for the microphone.

For a moment nobody moved.

Two security men by the side door looked at Stanford, and he did not give them the sign.

I understood in that second that he was afraid.

Stanford Merrow, who had never been afraid of a board, a reporter or a judge, let go of the microphone.

Vanessa took it.

"Good evening, everyone," she said.

Her voice was warm and a little shy.

"I'm Vanessa Endicott, Dalton's chief of staff, and I've loved this family for a long time."

A few guests smiled.

"I wasn't going to say anything tonight. I know it's a celebration."

She turned her head toward me.

"But I can't stand by while Linnea walks out of here believing something that isn't true."

Beside me, Dalton had stopped breathing.

I felt it through his arm, which had gone hard as a pipe.

"Dalton," I said quietly.

He did not look at me.

"Six years ago, in March," said Vanessa, "a couple drove home from a restaurant on Route 9 in the rain."

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