Chapter 18: Thirty Days

Claire's POV

My mother held the Penhallow Foundation dinner in the Grand Aldine ballroom, in the same room, on the same marble floor.

She did not know how to do anything else.

Three hundred guests came, because the invitations had gone out six weeks earlier, and because nobody wanted to miss what she would do next.

I came in through the main doors.

Ethan stood at them, in his black jacket and earpiece, because I had asked him to take the door one more time.

He held it open for me.

"Mrs. Rudd," he said.

"Mr. Rudd."

He did not smile, but his eyes did.

I walked in with Beatrice on my arm and Bridget two steps behind us in a gray dress, her head up.

The guests stopped talking.

My mother stood on the little stage with a glass in her hand, in emerald silk, and her smile held for exactly one breath.

Then she tapped her glass.

"Friends. Tonight I want to honor an old friend of this family, who has stood by the Penhallow name through hard years."

Her eyes went to the side door.

I understood.

She was waiting for Mr. Tull.

She was going to announce a rescue, a partnership, a new loan, and make the whole city watch it happen.

He was late.

I walked up the steps.

"Claire," my mother said, through her teeth. "Not now."

"Now," I said, and took the microphone out of her hand.

It was warm from her fingers.

Three hundred faces turned toward me, and I saw the people who had laughed.

I saw them look at the floor.

"Good evening," I said. "Some of you were here when my mother introduced me to my husband. I'd like to introduce myself."

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