This Time, I'll Be the Villain's Favorite Daughter novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Gala

Mabel held the phone very still.

"Is it a nice picture?" she asked.

There was a pause on the line.

"What?"

"Of my dad. Is he smiling? He doesn't smile in pictures."

"You think this is funny?" Darla's warm voice slipped. "Tomorrow night, you say you want to come home. Or I end him."

"Good night, ma'am," said Mabel, and hung up.

She went into the living room and told them.

Hank listened from the couch with his eyes half closed.

"What job?" asked Fern.

"I haven't had a job in three years," said Hank. "Whatever she's got, it's a picture of me." He shrugged. "That's all it'll ever be."

The gala was in the great hall of the Field Museum.

There were three hundred people in black tie, round tables under white lights, and a dinosaur skeleton so tall its head nearly touched the ceiling.

Up on the mezzanine, a string quartet was playing.

Mabel looked up at the railing once.

Then she didn't look at it again.

She came in through the front doors in the ice-blue dress, with her red coat over her arm.

Linus walked beside her in a tiny black suit, with his hair combed flat by Fern.

He hadn't left her side since the car.

Trenton met them at the door.

He looked at Mabel's dress, nodded once, and held out his hand.

Mabel took it.

It was the first time in two lives she had ever held her father's hand.

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