Chapter 17: Yes, to His Face

Abe didn't say anything.

He walked past me to the counter and turned the television off.

Then he stood there with the remote in his hand.

"He's having me declared dead," he said. "By Friday. With my own board."

"And he just told Chicago I'm marrying him."

"You didn't say yes."

"Not yet."

He turned around.

"Yvette."

"He didn't ask me first because he wants me to have to deny it."

I picked up my phone. "If I deny it, I'm the woman who shamed a grieving man on the news."

"So I won't deny it."

"You're going to say yes."

"To his face. In front of his people." I looked at him. "And then I'm going to set the date."

He looked at me for a long time.

"I hate this," he said.

"I know."

At nine-thirty the next morning, I walked into the Cruger Arms tower on Wacker in my best grey suit and my flat shoes.

Abe had told me which elevator went to the top without a badge.

He'd told me which guard would wave me through, and he was right.

"The woman at the desk on forty has worked for my family since I was twelve," he'd said in the car.

"If she asks your business, tell her you're there about the blue car."

"What's the blue car?"

"She'll know."

The woman at the desk on forty was sixty, in pearls, with her hair in a silver knot.

She looked up and took in my face.

"I'm here about the blue car," I said.

Her eyes went wide, and then very bright.

She stood up.

"This way, Ms. Langford."

She didn't take me to Russell's office.

She took me to the glass conference room at the end of the hall.

Twelve men and women in dark suits sat around the table.

Russell was at the head of it, with a slide up behind him that said "Leadership Transition."

He stopped mid-sentence.

Everyone turned.

"Yvette," he said, and his smile came a half second late.

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