Claimed by My Ex-Husband novel · Chapter 20 of 48

Chapter 20: The Green Coat

Tala's POV

I wore the green coat.

It had hung in Dessa's closet for five months, because I couldn't look at it and couldn't throw it away.

Dessa zipped it up at my throat in the back of the taxi.

"If anyone says one word about this coat," she said, "I'll take their pulse and tell them how it went."

"Thank you."

"I mean it. I'll find a vein."

The Alcantara Grand glowed at the end of the street.

Tomas waited at the curb in a black suit, sober, with his hands in his pockets.

"She's already on the stage," he said. "She asked the band to stop."

"Where's Angelo?"

"By the chair. He hasn't moved in an hour."

We went in through the revolving door.

The lobby was the one I remembered, dim and gold, with the long bar and the velvet chairs.

It was full of people.

I saw uniforms, housekeeping and front desk and the kitchen in white, standing shoulder to shoulder with donors in evening dress.

Cameras stood in a row against the wall.

Four hundred people were holding champagne and waiting.

At the far end, on a small stage built over the bar, stood Noelle in a long cream dress.

She had a microphone in her hand and a speaker on a stand beside her.

I found Angelo in the crowd, and my heart did a stupid thing.

He stood beside the velvet chair, in the charcoal suit, with his hands at his sides.

He did not move toward me, and he did not smile.

He looked at me in the green coat, and I watched him understand what I had chosen to wear.

His eyes closed for one second.

Then he opened them and kept his word and stayed where he was.

"Friends," Noelle said, and the room quieted. "Thank you all. Before the toast, I owe you something."

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