Playboy's Secret Wife novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Vote

Chad had counted seven votes, and he looked it.

He sat at the head of the long table at nine o'clock with his hands folded and a very white smile.

Twelve directors in dark suits, and Eleanor on his left, with her face.

Lucas sat at the foot, and I sat beside him with a leather folder on my knees.

"We're here on a painful matter," Chad said.

"I'll be brief."

"The chairman has been photographed in a lake house with a woman he married while she was too drunk to stand."

"She has spent the days since turning that private matter into a spectacle."

"I move that Lucas Hargrove be removed as chairman, effective today."

"Second," said a man near the middle, a little too fast.

"Before we vote," I said.

Chad sighed.

"Mrs. Hargrove, you have no seat."

"I have a chair," I said.

"I told this board I'd sit in every meeting, and nobody said no."

"The woman who seconded the last motion asked for more evidence."

"I brought some."

The woman director looked at me over her glasses.

"Let her speak," she said.

Chad spread his hands.

"By all means."

I stood.

"There were three claims against my marriage," I said.

"One, that no license was ever issued."

I opened the folder, took out the sealed envelope, and put it in the middle of the table.

"That's license eleven forty-three, from the Clark County bureau, signed in the registrar's own hand."

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