Playboy's Secret Wife novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: What It Costs

He didn't call me that night.

I'd gone back to my own room in the penthouse, and shut the door, and listened to a man pace the floor on the other side of the wall until two in the morning.

I didn't lock it.

At nine, the doorman called up.

"Mrs. Hargrove, there's a car for you."

"From who?"

"From Mrs. Eleanor Hargrove, ma'am."

"She says you'll want to see the lobby."

The Hargrove Capital atrium was twelve floors of glass and white orchids, and every person in the building was standing in it.

I saw the staff, and the board, and a row of cameras on tripods near the stairs.

Eleanor stood at the back in a navy suit.

She didn't look at me, but she moved a half step to make room, and I took it.

"What's he doing?" I whispered.

"He told me last night," she said quietly.

"I wish he hadn't."

"I'd have preferred to be surprised."

Lucas walked out onto the landing halfway up the grand staircase.

He wore a charcoal suit and no tie, and his left hand was bare.

I saw it from sixty feet away, and my stomach did something complicated.

"Good morning," he said.

He didn't need a microphone, because the atrium carried his voice.

"Yesterday this board removed my cousin from his offices."

"Some of you have asked what comes next."

"I'd like to tell you before the papers do."

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