Chapter 22: The Stairwell

Laurence's POV

Imogen reached the glass doors and found two men in dark overcoats standing in front of them.

They were not Ben's men.

They wore badges on their belts, and they did not move.

She turned on her heel and ran for the service stairwell at the back of the lobby.

I went after her.

I did not run.

I walked, fast, with four hundred people parting in front of me.

I heard the stairwell door bang on its bar before I got there.

The donors followed.

I did not tell them to.

They filled the landing behind me with their phones up, and the stairwell echoed with footsteps.

She had made it to the first turn.

She stood against the wall with one hand on the rail and her cream silk caught on the steel.

Her breath was loud.

I had never heard her breathe loudly in nine years.

"Laurence," she said.

"Imogen."

"Don't do this in front of them."

"You wrote my speech for nine years," I said. "You never minded who was in front."

"You don't know what you're doing."

"I do. For the first time, I do."

Below her on the stairs, a door opened and shut.

Ben's footsteps came up, slow and even, and two uniformed officers behind them.

She heard it.

She did not look down.

"You've heard the woman," Imogen said, quickly, in her low, sweet voice.

"She's been in your house a month. She's made you doubt every person who has ever loved you."

"Nobody loves me like you, you mean."

"I built you."

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