Chapter 12: Forty Feet Wide

Frank Dolan put my pay stubs on a screen forty feet wide, and the first thing the room read was my name.

It was nine o'clock at the Harbor Gala.

We had just finished the chairman's dance. Cain had stepped on my foot once, and I had smiled through it, and the room had applauded.

Then the lights dimmed, and the screen came down behind the lectern.

MARA BELL, it said, in letters taller than me. PERSONAL ASSOCIATE. ROURKE MARINE FREIGHT.

Dolan stood at the lectern with a remote in his hand.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Before the Board votes on Pier 9, I'd like you to meet the woman who's been telling you what kind of man Cain Rourke is."

He clicked.

MONTHLY SALARY: $15,000.

A murmur went around the tables.

He clicked again.

WARDROBE ALLOWANCE: $2,000. FLOWER ALLOWANCE: $0.

A woman near the front gasped. Dolan turned, delighted.

"Zero dollars," he said, "for flowers. He never gave her a single one. She's an employee. She's been paid fourteen months to look at him like that."

He clicked a third time.

CAKE: PER CONTRACT.

I'll be honest, that one made me laugh out loud.

Two hundred faces turned to look at me.

Cain had gone completely still beside me. His hand had come to rest on the back of my chair, and I felt it tighten.

"May I?" I said to him, quietly.

He didn't answer. He gave a very small nod.

I stood up and walked to the front, in the green silk the stylist had picked, and Dolan stepped aside because he didn't know what else to do.

I took the microphone.

"Hello," I said. "I'm Mara. Yes, it's true."

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