Claimed by My Ex-Husband novel · Chapter 22 of 48

Chapter 22: Room 1412

Nobody touched her.

The security staff stood in a line at the foot of the stage, and the nearest one, a woman with a radio, said, "Ms. Ferrer. This way, please."

Noelle came down the three steps slowly, with her clutch in both hands.

She stopped in front of me.

For a moment I thought she would hit me.

Instead she smiled, a thin, perfect smile with nothing under it.

"He'd have chosen me in a year," she said, very low. "You know that. Ask him why he looked at that photograph every night."

"I know why," I said. "He loved me."

Her smile slipped.

I held out my hand, palm up.

"The key."

"What key?"

"The one you kept. The one you used to walk into my kitchen."

She stared at my hand.

Then she opened her blazer, took the small key off its ring, and dropped it on my palm.

It was still warm from her.

She walked down the lobby between two guards, with four hundred people on both sides of her.

Nobody said a word.

The front desk looked at her.

The housekeepers looked at her.

A young bellboy at the end of the line turned his back on her.

The cameras flashed, one, two, ten.

The revolving door turned once and let her out onto the street.

The lobby breathed.

The silver-haired man from the board crossed the floor and stopped in front of Angelo.

"Sunday's vote is cancelled," he said.

"Thank you."

"I should have asked you first. I'm sorry."

Angelo nodded.

He was looking over the man's shoulder at me.

I came down off the stage on Dessa's arm.

She let go of me exactly at the bottom.

"Go," she whispered. "I'll take the press."

"You'll take the press?"

"I'm the one with the pulse jokes. Go."

The crowd opened for me again.

This time nobody looked away.

I walked the length of the lobby in the green coat, past the velvet chair and the plant, and stopped in front of my husband.

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