I Was Done Begging novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: On His Knees

Julien stayed on his knees on the ballroom floor.

Nobody helped him up.

The oldest director of the board stood, with the note still in his hand, and the whole room turned to him.

"Julien," he said. "Is this your handwriting?"

Julien looked at the paper, then at me.

"Celia, please," he whispered. "Not here."

"Answer him."

"It's a draft. It's from years ago. I was angry, I didn't mean..."

"You wrote it six years ago," I said. "You were not angry. You were counting."

A man at the board table laughed once, a short ugly sound, and covered his mouth.

The old director folded the note and put it in his breast pocket.

"I call an emergency vote," he said. "Julien Lacombe is removed as chairman of Lacombe Marine, effective tonight."

"You can't," Julien said from the floor. "You need a quorum."

"We have eleven of twelve in this room," the director said. "Hands."

Eleven hands went up.

Not one of them looked at Julien.

His mother came down the aisle with her diamond collar flashing.

"This is a stunt," she said. "That girl is a gold digger and a liar, and every one of you knows what we have done for her."

"Three years of a bed and a nurse," I said. "You told me that was charity."

"It was."

"You also paid two men to take me from the garage downstairs tonight."

The whole room gasped.

"I did nothing of the kind."

"They're in a back room with Everhart security," Lucas said from behind me. "They gave your name, and they gave your son's. It's on my phone."

She turned on him.

"Who are you?"

"Lucas Trahan. I work for her father."

The doors at the back of the ballroom opened.

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