The Wife He Left Behind novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: Mr. and Mrs.
The Pacific Crest year-end dinner was held in the ballroom of a downtown hotel, under three chandeliers.
Four hundred people in black and gold.
I walked in on Stellan's arm in a long green dress that had been let out at the waist that week.
I was eighteen weeks along, and I didn't hide it.
People looked.
A woman by the coat check put her hand over her mouth.
Two men from the loading-dock office nudged each other, and one of them said, "That's her."
"They know your face," Stellan said, low.
"They know the cake."
"Do you mind?"
"No." I found I meant it. "I think I'm going to enjoy this."
"Mrs. Reiner."
A man had come up beside the coat check, and I knew him before I turned.
He was in a suit tonight instead of a quarter-zip, and he had no paper cup.
He had dark rings under his eyes.
"I took a piece of your cake," he said. "In November."
"I remember."
"I was the one who wrote the comment. On the page. In October." He swallowed. "The one that said Power team."
Stellan stiffened beside me.
"I didn't know," the man said quickly. "I thought they were just. I didn't know, I swear to you. I'm in finance."
"Then why are you talking to me?"
"Because I've been in the Singapore cost center since the cake." He glanced over his shoulder and pulled a long white envelope from inside his jacket. "I found something. I flagged it to my manager in October, and nothing happened. I can't send it to anyone who can do anything about it. I can't take it to the board myself."
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