Chapter 22: Ask Me to Stay

Flynn's POV

Clayton held the card above his head, and three hundred people in evening clothes turned to look at it.

"That's Chloe's handwriting," he said. "It's the card Mom read at the party."

His voice shook, and he kept going.

"It was on top because she put it on top. She handed Mom the deck and said, 'Just take the top one.' I was standing there."

Chloe laughed, high and clear.

"Anyone can write on a card," she told the room.

"When I was thirteen, I saw Dad's glass in the car," Clayton said. "Mom told me I was mistaken, and the next week I got a watch."

He turned to the stage.

"When you were fourteen, Chloe, you said you wondered what the driveway looked like from the porch. The next week you got a car."

"Stop it."

"At the party, you got a house."

"Clayton!" That was his mother, white to the lips, coming down the aisle with her pearls swinging.

"You ungrateful boy. Everything you have, we gave you. The apartment, the seat at the firm..."

"The payment," Clayton said.

The word went through the room.

"For being on Chloe's side. For never asking. That's what it was, wasn't it, Mom?"

"I will not be spoken to like this in public."

"You're the one who's been paying in public," Clayton said. "Nobody was watching until tonight."

I stood at the back by the open doors, with one hand on the easel.

I had been braced my whole life for a scene like this.

A man at the center of it, explaining how sorry he was.

My father's speeches all began the same way: Flynn, I know I haven't earned this.

This room was different, and it took me a moment to see why.

Lawrence Hartwell stood on the stage with his hands at his sides, and he was not explaining anything.

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