Never Yours Again novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Twelve at the Table

The Palgrave house sat on the lake with every window lit.

I had been inside it a dozen times, always as a guest and never once as family.

Tonight I walked up the front steps on Camille's arm.

She wore the green dress, the same green as the coat in the photo, and she carried herself.

"Breathe," she said at the door.

"I am breathing."

"You're holding it like a bag of groceries."

A housekeeper let us in and didn't blink.

We heard the dining room before we saw it.

Twelve people sat at a long table under a chandelier, and at the head of it, glass raised, stood Rhett.

He was smiling the smile he used on investors.

"There she is," he said, looking at the doorway. "My lovely face of the season."

He hadn't seen me yet.

Camille took one step in, and I took the step beside her.

The smile stayed on his face a half second too long.

Then it dropped, and a knife clinked against a plate somewhere down the table.

"Lucy," Rhett said.

"Good evening."

"What are you doing here?"

"I was invited," I said. "By your text to Camille, which said you wanted everyone to see her."

Constance sat at the other end of the table, perfectly still.

Her gaze went from me to Camille and back, and her mouth thinned.

Beside her was a gray-haired man in a bow tie, one of the Palgrave board members.

Three more of them sat farther down with their wives.

Ellis sat halfway along the table with his hands flat on the cloth.

He looked at me, and I looked back, and neither of us said anything.

"Sit," Rhett said, too brightly. "Both of you. It's lovely you've met. Lucy was just visiting from out of town."

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