Chapter 23: Her Own Name

Ciara's POV

Ben came to the penthouse three days later with a cashier's check.

His face had no expression on it at all.

"Four hundred thousand dollars," he said. "Recovered from her accounts. The rest is frozen until the trial."

He put it on the kitchen island.

It had my name on it.

I looked at it for a long time.

"It's yours," Laurence said from the stove. "It was always yours."

"I don't want it."

"Ciara."

"I want it to go to Hearth House."

I said it before I knew I would.

Laurence turned off the burner.

"All of it?"

"There's a family in that shelter right now with a child eating off a tray."

I pushed the check across the marble.

"I know exactly what that costs. Meals, for every family in the work program, in a kitchen run by a woman who fries everything."

Ben's mouth moved, very slightly.

"I'll call Ms. Quinn," he said.

He left.

Birdie was asleep in the blue room, in a nightgown with rabbits on it.

She lay on top of the covers, because she had refused to go under them.

Laurence stood in the kitchen in his shirt with the sleeves rolled and a look I did not recognize.

*She gave it away. She gave away six years of it in one breath.*

"Say it," I said.

"I have never in my life met anyone like you."

"You'd have met more people if you had left the building."

He laughed.

It was low and surprised, and it changed his whole face.

Then he put his hand in his trouser pocket and took out a small green velvet box.

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