After I Saved Him, My CEO Said We Were Strangers novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Tea With the Chairwoman

Dorothea Ashworth gives Hallie the first seat at her table for the Draycott engagement party and tells her to ask her grandson what he wrote in the relationship box on her surgery consent.

Dorothea Ashworth lived in a brick house in Bexley with a front door painted the exact red of a fire truck.

I rang the bell at four on the dot, in my one pair of comfortable shoes, with my arm in a sling.

The woman who opened it was five foot three and seventy-nine years old, with white hair cut short as a boy's and a cane she held.

"Hallie MacAuley," she said. "You're on time. That's already better than my grandson."

"Mrs. Ashworth."

"Dorothea. Mrs. Ashworth is a woman who sits very still at funerals."

She turned and walked down the hall without checking whether I followed.

Her kitchen smelled like lemon and coffee.

There were two cups on the table and a plate of shortbread already cut into triangles.

She poured, sat, and pointed her cane at the chair across from her.

"Sit. Eat something. You've been in surgery and you haven't eaten since."

I sat.

"I watched the video a dozen times," she said. "Do you know what I noticed?"

"That I look furious?"

That you didn't look at the beam.

She took a shortbread.

"You looked at him," she said. "You didn't check the beam first. You didn't ask yourself whether you'd make it. My late husband was an ironworker for thirty years, and he told me once that you can't teach that."

I didn't know what to say, so I ate a piece of shortbread.

It was very good.

"Now," said Dorothea. "Tell me what he said to you in that room."

"You've seen the video."

"I saw the video Camille Draycott chose to post. A forty-second clip. The hospital room was a good deal longer."

"He said we'd never spoken."

She put her cup down.

For a moment she looked very old, and then she didn't.

"I see," she said. "That is the stupidest thing my grandson has ever done, and I was present when he tried to ride a golf cart off the roof of the garage."

I laughed in spite of myself, and my shoulder hurt.

"Mrs. Ashworth, why am I here?"

"Dorothea."

"Why am I here, Dorothea?"

She leaned back.

"Declan has not slept in his own bed in eight days," she said. "He sleeps on the couch in his office, with the lights on, and my driver says he asks to be taken past your street at night and then doesn't get out of the car."

I stared into my coffee.

"I don't know what's going on," I said.

"No," said Dorothea. "I don't think you do. And I don't think he's going to tell you in the tidy way. He's his father's son. His father also once told me everything was fine while the roof was on fire."

She took a card from her cardigan pocket and slid it across the table.

It was thick cream stock, embossed with a gold border.

"The Ashworth and Draycott engagement party," she read. "Saturday, the Hartwell Ballroom, seven o'clock. Black tie. Three hundred guests."

"I wasn't invited."

"You are now. I'm the chair of the board. I have a table of ten and I've decided to give you the first seat."

"Camille will be there."

"Camille will be delighted. She's a very gracious young woman." Dorothea's mouth did something dry. "That's the thing I find most interesting about her."

"Why do you want me at a party for the man who humiliated me?"

"Because I want Garrison Draycott to look across the room and see you sitting at my table in a very good dress."

She tapped her cane on the floor twice.

"Garrison has never given anyone a gift he couldn't send an invoice for. Two weeks ago he gave my grandson a fiancée. I want to see his face when the gift sits down."

"I'm not a gift."

"No. You're the one person in that building he can't buy."

I turned the card over.

On the back was a printed line, *Table One*, and below it, in her own sharp hand, *Dorothea's guest*.

"I don't have a dress," I said. "I'm wearing a sling."

"I have a woman who does alterations. She can hide a sling inside a sleeve." Dorothea's eyes sparkled. "I'd suggest red."

I wanted to say no.

Two days earlier a man I'd known for five years had looked at me like I was nobody, and the idea of putting on a good dress to stand in his ballroom was close to humiliating.

But I thought of Camille's sweet, steady smile in the hospital, and the witness line already filled in.

"Okay," I said.

"Splendid." Dorothea poured me more coffee. "I'll send the car."

"I'll take the bus."

"You'll take the car. You're a hero. Heroes get to arrive in cars."

She walked me to the front door herself.

At the step she stopped, and put one hand on my good arm.

She was very small, and her grip was iron.

"One more thing," she said. "Before Saturday, you might ask my grandson a question. Ask him what he wrote in the box marked relationship, on your surgery consent."

My stomach dropped.

"The nurse said company policy."

"The nurse said what she was told," said Dorothea. "The form is on file at the hospital. I've already asked to see it."

She patted my arm, once.

"Wear comfortable shoes under the dress, dear. It will be a long night."

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