Love After Layoffs novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Chairman

"You said no," I repeated.

"To the engagement, to the woman, to the whole plan."

"What woman?"

"Her name is Savannah Scaife," Brooks said.

"Her family holds nine percent of the company."

"My grandfather picked her for me last spring, and he'd like it settled before he retires."

"And you never said yes?"

"Not once. Not to him, and not to her."

I took my hand off his chest.

"Then why are we standing in a hallway like I'm the other woman?"

"We are not."

His voice sharpened.

"You are a married woman who has asked for a divorce."

"I am a man who has not agreed to marry anyone."

"Nobody here is the other woman, Janine."

"That's a very clean sentence."

"I rehearsed it in the elevator."

I laughed before I could stop myself.

He smiled, the gap in his teeth showing, and I thought, this is a problem.

A voice cut the air behind us.

"Mr. Ketterman."

A tall guard in a dark suit stood at the end of the corridor, holding a phone to his ear.

"Your grandfather is waiting in his office, sir. He asked for Ms. Weller by name."

I looked at Brooks.

"I didn't call him," Brooks said.

The guard said nothing and held the elevator.

The Chairman's office was on the fifty-first floor.

It was larger than my first apartment, with dark wood, a long window full of the river, and a smell of cedar and old paper.

A man sat behind the desk with a cane laid across his knees.

He was seventy-nine years old, with a head of thick white hair, a black three-piece suit, and a face like a weathered rock.

He did not get up.

"Miss Weller," Alvin Ketterman said. "Sit."

I sat.

Brooks started to speak, and his grandfather raised one finger.

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