Chapter 20: A Child Who Is Not Well

The shareholders' dinner was held in the long gallery of an old palace in the city, under three chandeliers.

Three hundred guests sat at white tables set with the Falconieri crest, and they turned their heads when I came in.

I wore a plain dark dress that the maids had pinned for me that afternoon.

Fiammetta walked on my left, and Hanna on my right, and Gaetano a step behind.

Hanna's father followed us in his one dark suit, with his arms folded.

"I am here to look at people," he whispered to me. "Nobody has told me to stop."

My place was at the high table, three seats down from my father.

He rose to greet me with both hands out and a kind, sad smile.

"My youngest," he said, loud enough for the nearest tables. "You came. I am so glad."

Every guest watched him kiss my forehead.

I stood still and let him.

Ugo sat on my father's other side with his eyes on the tablecloth.

My aunt and uncle sat two seats further, and my aunt would not look up.

The oldest man on the board sat at the next table, and he caught my eye over his wine glass and gave me the smallest nod.

Dinner went on for an hour.

I ate nothing.

Beside me, Fiammetta turned her glass round and round by the stem.

"Courage," Hanna breathed in my ear. "I have a plan. I do not know what it is yet."

At nine o'clock, as he had promised, my father tapped his fork on a glass.

The gallery went quiet in rows.

"Friends," he said. "Partners. Families who have trusted this company for sixty years."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Daughter They Erased Came Back Untouchable from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.