A Night With A Stranger novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Same Check, Bigger

Evan's POV

Jada slept on her stomach with one arm hanging off the edge of my bed.

It was six in the morning, and gray light was coming through the curtains.

I had been awake for an hour.

I used to lie in the dark and not know what had been done in my own suite.

Now I knew, and the knowing did not make me sleep any better.

I looked at the armchair by the window, the one I'd dragged to the foot of the bed that other night.

The housekeeper had put it back where it belonged.

I thought of a man who didn't know his own hands, sitting up in it with his shoes on, keeping watch over a stranger.

He had done the right thing without knowing it.

I had spent a week thinking he was a monster.

Jada stirred and made a small sound, and her fingers curled in the sheet.

I put my palm on her back, light, and she settled.

I left her sleeping and showered and dressed in the charcoal suit.

My mother was waiting in my office.

She sat in the chair across from my desk with her purse on her knees, and she did not turn when I came in.

"Dennis Kroll was arraigned at eight," she said. "The judge denied bail this morning."

"Good."

"I have also spoken to our general counsel about your seat."

"I don't care about the seat."

"No," she said. "You never did. You cared about being the one who did not do what your father did."

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