Page 66 of All Mine

“I was just in the hallway outside conference room B trying to give our stance, and they won’t let me.”

“That’s not accurate, Sloane,” Eddie said.

“It was until that buffoon tried to manhandle me,” Sloane huffed.

“Camden tried to mistreat you?” I asked.

“Not him, some other asshole in there. This guy makes Camden look like a Boy Scout.”

“I bet that it’s the mysterious client he’s always blaming. Part of me thought he made him up.”

“I wish.” Sloane shuddered.

“Come on,” Eddie said, “I’m supposed to escort you out.”

“I’m going,” Sloane bit.

I turned for the conference room.

“Don’t make me have to walk you out, too,” Eddie called after me.

“They’re cheating, Eddie. Why should we be the ones punished?” I called back and kept walking.

Conference Room B was the first room on the left along the hallway leading to the town meeting hall, which would now have all the chairs removed and set up with voting machines. A fragment from one of our signs lay on the floor. I stepped into the sparse room with easels containing artistic drawings of a new shopping center that Camden arranged in a semi-circle around the room. But my eyes landed on the one lone man at the back of the room. He wore a pinstripe suit and faced looking out the window.

“Hello, Lauren,” he said, without moving. “I was hoping to avoid this moment until after the vote.”

“Stephen,” I breathed, barely able to get the word out. It’d been twenty months since our divorce, and I’d planned never to lay eyes on this man again. I’d given him everything, except the business, to cut ties with him forever, and there he stood. He wanted my bakery too.

“It’s so good to see you again, darling,” he said, turning, his bright blue eyes sweeping over me like a shark looking for a vulnerable flailing arm or leg.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know.”

“I can venture a guess, but I’d like to hear it from you. You’re the client.”

The corners of his mouth slid into an unkind smile that didn’t meet his eyes.

“I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?” My knees and hands shook, rendering me unable to move. I stood pinned in place.

“So you can have a nice new bakery.”

“I don’t want a new bakery.” And he’d never let Camden build me another one in a million years.

“It’ll be much better for business.” Stephen tapped his fingers on the conference room table. He was lying out his ass.

“You hated the bakery; thought it was a mistake.”

“I hated that my wife cared more about it than helping me start my political career.”

“No, you didn’t like that my name wasn’t more of a help.”

“You didn’t even try to revive the Hart name. We could have built something great.”

“The Hart name wasn’t a magic ticket. But, I’m building a successful business on my terms.”

“A bakery. You’d rather be on your feet all day working over hot stoves than being the wife of a politician. You could have had it all.”

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