Now I Watch Her Love Him novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Badge and Keys

Nobody in the showroom moved.

The cellist still had her bow in the air.

Hannah stood an arm's length from me, and I could not make my mouth work.

Behind her, Jonas had not taken a step, and his eyes stayed on her back.

My father walked over and picked the microphone up off the tile.

His hand was shaking, and he held it.

"Corrigan," he said into it.

The speakers squealed, and he lowered it and said her name again in his own voice.

"Corrigan. Badge and keys."

Bailey stood where she was, with her face wet.

"Mr. Thorsby, I..."

"You picked the quartet," he said. "You wrote the banner. You stood at my table at the club and watched that girl hug you, and you knew."

"Yes, sir."

"I will not ask twice."

She lifted the lanyard over her head.

She laid the badge on the service counter, between two champagne flutes, and put the company key fob beside it.

Two hundred people watched her do it.

A salesman who had eaten lunch at her desk for six years looked at his shoes.

"Mr. Thorsby," she said, "I was good at this job."

"You were the best I had," my father said. "That's why I'll never forgive it."

She turned to me.

I had thought I would feel pity, or rage, and what I felt was very tired and very clear.

"Say something," she said. "Please. Anything."

"You answered her call," I said.

My voice carried farther than I meant it to.

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