Chapter 21: Say It Again

Gordon heard himself a half second after everyone else did.

"I misspoke," he said.

His eyes went to the cameras along the wall, and every red light was on.

"I said it ended. I meant that the lies had ended. I meant..."

"You said you withdraw your consent," Ronan said, pleasantly. "Six hundred witnesses. I count nine cameras."

A man in a gray suit rose at the back of our table and walked up the aisle with a leather folder.

He was Ronan's lawyer, and he had been sitting beside the dessert plates all night, saying nothing.

"Mr. Hollister, clause seven of the agreement." The lawyer opened the folder.

"If the Hollister family breaks or ends the engagement, it pays Bellingham Capital two hundred million dollars within thirty days."

"I didn't break anything."

"You ended it, sir. In your own ballroom."

Gordon looked at the faces around him.

Nobody looked back.

Then an old man at table four put down his napkin and stood up.

I knew him from the banquet, a silver-haired man who had given Gordon a standing ovation and a very large check.

"Gordon," he said. "Sit down."

"You can't..."

"I've sat on your board for twenty-two years."

His voice was cold and level.

"I move that Mr. Hollister be suspended as chairman, effective this minute, pending an investigation."

"Second," said a woman at table six.

"Third," said somebody else.

Hands went up across the ballroom, one at a time.

They belonged to men and women in black tie who had laughed at his toasts for years.

Gordon turned slowly in a circle.

"This is my hotel," he said. "My father's hotel."

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