Playboy's Secret Wife novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Chad Falls

Lucas caught Chad's wrist an inch above the envelope.

He didn't look angry.

His face was entirely calm.

"Sit down, cousin," he said.

"Let go of me."

"In a moment."

Chad yanked, and Lucas let go, and Chad stumbled back into his chair so hard it rolled into the wall.

Twelve directors stared at him.

The white-bearded man stood up, very slowly.

"I have sat on this board for thirty-one years," he said.

"I have watched a great many men grab for papers."

"It was always the same sort of man."

"He's lying," Chad said.

His voice had gone high.

"All of them are lying."

"She's a nobody from an insurance office, and she's been playing you for two weeks."

"Eleanor's been planning this since the minute the girl walked into the lobby."

"Then the girl's very good at her job," said the woman director dryly.

She had my phone in her hand and had been reading for a full minute.

"Chadwick, this invoice has your office's letterhead."

"It's a forgery."

"With your assistant's initials."

"I'd like to hear her explain it."

"She's not here," he said.

"Isn't she?"

Eleanor had risen.

She hadn't said a word all morning, and now she placed both palms flat on the table, and every head turned.

"Chadwick," she said.

"I took you in when your father died."

"I paid for your school, and I gave you a desk on the forty-first floor."

"You repaid me by buying a priest, a clerk and a photographer, and by making a young woman a joke in the newspaper."

"I'd like you to leave this building."

"You can't throw me out."

"I run this company."

"You run it on a seat I can take back with one vote," she said.

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