One Night With The Wrong Brother novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: The Vote
The Ashcroft board met on Monday at ten, in the same hotel, on the fifty-second floor.
I had thought I'd never go back up there.
The trustee had asked for me by name, and for Mitchell.
He had also asked for the doors to be left open to the press.
The boardroom had a long glass table and a view of half of Manhattan.
Six directors sat on one side of it, gray and pressed, and not one of them looked at me when I came in.
Mitchell took the chair beside mine.
His knee pressed against my knee under the table.
On the far side, alone, sat Constance.
She wore a navy suit and her pearls, and she kept her back as straight as a ruler.
Lawrence was not beside her.
He came in late, through the side door, with his lawyer a step behind.
He had not shaved.
The gray morning coat was gone.
The man in the dark sweater looked like someone Lawrence might have hired to carry his bags.
He took the seat at the head of the table, because it was his, and nobody stopped him.
The trustee stood.
"We are here to decide a succession," he said. "I will keep this short."
He laid a single sheet on the glass.
"The trust provides that the hotels pass to a child of the Ashcroft bloodline. The child's guardian acts for it until it comes of age."
"My child," Lawrence said hoarsely.
"Mr. Ashcroft, a physician's letter in the file says otherwise, and you have said otherwise yourself, in front of four hundred witnesses and a good deal of the press."
Lawrence opened his mouth.
His lawyer put a hand on his sleeve.
"The trust's purpose was a child of the blood," the trustee said. "It was never a purpose that required deceiving the child's mother. I am satisfied that the arrangement was procured by fraud, and that the person who procured it cannot act as chairman."
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