My husband divorced me on national TV. He didn't know he just fired the genius behind his entire empire. novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Room 1412

"No?" Preston said, very low, into the live microphone. "Tatum, sit down."

Tatum did not sit.

She stood at the podium with her hand on the stem of the microphone and her knuckles white.

"You told me it was routine," she said. "You told me it was a formality for the lawyers."

"Ms. Kensley is unwell," Preston said to the cameras, smooth and fast.

"She has been under strain. I regret to say she acted entirely on her own."

The hall gasped.

"Alone," Tatum said.

"She forged this document without my knowledge. I barely know her outside of work."

Dani felt it before she saw it.

Tatum went white, and then she went red, and then she laughed.

It was a dreadful sound.

"You barely know me?" she said. "You barely..."

She turned to him.

"You gave me a key to your penthouse, Preston."

"That's absurd," Preston said.

Dani stepped into the aisle.

She took a crumpled slip of paper from her bag.

She had carried it for three weeks.

She held it up to the nearest camera.

"Harbor Hotel," she said. "Room 1412. February ninth. Two guests, one bottle of wine, a late checkout."

The big screen showed it in letters three feet high.

"I had a fever of a hundred and two that night," Dani said. "My husband told me he was in Portland."

Nobody in the hall made a sound.

Preston's face went through four expressions, none of them good.

"That isn't mine," he said.

"It's your card," Dani said. "Last four digits eleven eleven. You always did like a pattern."

The anchor, at her podium, whispered something that sounded like Holy.

Tatum pulled out her phone with a shaking hand.

"He said, if it goes bad, the stamp is yours," she told the room. "He said, I never saw it."

She held it up.

"Here are the texts."

She read them out, one at a time.

"He told me to make the file the minute she signed."

"He told me to copy her signature from the license. He called it his parachute."

The camera caught the screen.

Preston lunged for the phone.

Two security guards had him by the arms before he reached her.

He shouted something that did not make it onto the broadcast.

In the second row, a woman in navy and pearls rose to her feet.

Imogen Halloway took the aisle at a steady walk, her portfolio under her arm.

She stopped at the foot of the stage.

"I am the chair of the Halloway Foundation and a director of this company," she said. "I hold nineteen percent."

Preston stared down at his mother.

"Mother. Don't."

"I move for the removal of Preston Halloway as chief executive officer, effective now."

← Chapter 18 · All chapters · Chapter 20 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend