I Had a Baby without You novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Unfit

Roark did not say a word until we were in the back of a car, a block from the hotel.

Then he put his forehead on the seat in front of him and said, "He knew."

"He knew what?"

"That she'd crack."

His voice was muffled.

"He wanted her to.

He needed her to say it out loud, so the vote would have an audience."

"Why would he want that?"

"Because the board doesn't care who wore the pin." He lifted his head. "They care that I can't tell my own staff apart."

I took his hand.

"Then we tell them the truth."

"Which truth?"

"All of it."

Behind us, the ballroom lights burned through the snow.

Gretchen had been hustled out a side door the moment Morton finished speaking, between two men in dark suits.

I had seen her face over their shoulders.

She looked like a woman who had just understood what she'd bought.

At nine the next morning, the boardroom on the sixtieth floor smelled of coffee and floor polish.

Nine leather chairs surrounded a table shaped like a coffin.

Morton sat at the head.

Roark stood at the foot, because they had not given him a chair.

I sat against the wall beside Rhona and the retired mailman.

We had no right to be there.

The mailman owned eleven shares of Draycott stock, bought in 1998 with a year-end bonus.

He had insisted on exercising his right to attend.

"The question before us," Morton said, "is simple."

He pressed a button, and a screen unrolled on the wall.

On it a clip began to play.

It was Roark in my diner, in his gray sweater, standing in front of Gretchen with his voice low and clear.

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