How to Tame a Silver Fox novel · Chapter 23 of 32

Chapter 23: Rehearsal Dinner

We listened to all nineteen minutes on the cottage floor with our backs against the daybed.

When it ended, Arlen was the first to move, and the only thing he did was wipe his face with his sleeve.

"Tomorrow," I said. "Not tonight."

"If I play it in a tent, he'll call it a trick of the speaker."

"He has to say it himself."

"In front of everyone."

"In front of everyone who has ever clapped for him."

He nodded.

He did not ask what I was planning, because I did not know yet.

That night we went to the rehearsal dinner, because the invitation said both of us.

I wanted to see my father's face when we walked in.

The tent stood on the river lawn, lit with strings of bulbs, with a long table down the center and forty chairs.

The wedding planner, a harried woman with a headset, was checking a sound table at the edge of the grass.

Speakers on tall black stands stood on either side of the white arch.

I looked at them for exactly as long as it took to count them.

My father sat at the head in a navy suit, with Sabrina at his right.

She had put her makeup back on.

She wore a high white collar and a polished smile, and when she saw me she did not so much as blink.

Her mother, three seats down, had her chin lifted and looked at her daughter.

There were three directors of the firm at the table with their wives, and my father's lawyer, and a priest.

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