He Stole My Bill, So I Divorced Him and Outranked His Father novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Chairman's Chair

Greta's POV

I turned Royce Spurlock's brass nameplate face down on the dais, and I sat in his chair.

It was tall and black and padded, and it had a gavel on the arm.

The committee room was dark except for the red of the exit sign, and it smelled of floor wax.

The special session was in its second day.

At two that afternoon I had stood in this room with the Governor's funding bill.

I had watched the chairman read its first line without once looking at me.

Now it was past ten, and the building belonged to the two of us.

"The Senate has its own name on the door," I said. "Your rule doesn't cover it."

Emilio stood at the foot of the dais with his jacket over his arm.

"I noticed that," he said. "I noticed it before you did."

"Then sit down in the witness chair, Mr. Cavazos."

It was a plain wooden chair at a table below the dais, facing me, with a microphone on a stand.

He sat.

He laid his jacket across his knees and put both hands on the arms of the chair.

"You don't touch," I said. "Not until I tell you. And you answer what I ask."

"Yes, ma'am."

"State your name for the record."

The corner of his mouth moved.

"Emilio Cavazos."

"Tell me about April."

His smile went away.

He looked at the microphone, and then he looked at me, and he did not look away again.

"In March I went to a fundraiser at the Austin Club," he said. "The Senator was there. Conway was there."

"I remember that one."

"You stood by the coat check for four hours with your husband's coat over your arm."

I had forgotten. I had not forgotten.

"You never once looked at your phone," Emilio said. "Everybody else in that room did."

"What did I do?"

"You watched the room, and you watched him, and you waited. I thought nobody that patient was stupid."

I unbuttoned my blouse.

I did it slowly, one button at a time, and his eyes dropped to my fingers and stayed.

"In April the Governor's counsel put a file on my desk," he said. "The drafting history of the Springs bill."

"Every version."

"Every version had your initials. I read it three times."

His voice was low and even, and he did not stop.

"There was a note in the margin of section 3, in pencil."

"What did it say?" I asked.

"If you are reading this, please read this part. It is the one that matters. G."

I stopped with my hand on the last button.

I had written that note at two in the morning and never thought anyone would read it.

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