Chapter 6 - Claire Takes the Microphone
She backed him into a quiet spot near a curtained alcove.
"Can we talk?"
Preston beamed. "Of course, sweetheart. Anything for you."
"The people here keep telling me Mom kept us away from you. That she hid us out of spite." Claire's voice was flat and hard. "Did you tell them that?"
His smile slipped.
"Claire, listen. When I took over, people started digging into my personal life. This company has run on my family's name for three generations. I had to get in front of it."
"Get in front of it," she repeated. "So you made her the villain. She's dead, Preston. She can't argue back."
"I was protecting all of us. Think about the headline if someone found out tomorrow that I had four daughters I hadn't seen in years. It'd be a scandal. Your names would be dragged through it too."
"So you lied first."
"I stopped something ugly before it could hurt anybody."
And there it was.
He hadn't come back because he missed them. He'd come back because he was scared someone would eventually dig up the truth about how he'd walked away.
"That's why you brought us here," Claire said. "Not because we're your kids. Because you needed us standing next to you so the story would hold up."
"No. I brought you here because you are my daughters, and you should—"
"Then go back out there and tell them the truth," she cut in. "All of it. Right now."
Preston said nothing.
The silence answered for him.
I stepped up next to Claire.
"Nora raised these girls when you wouldn't even come downstairs to see her," I said. "Where were you when there were no cameras around?"
He looked at me like I was a waiter who'd spoken out of turn.
"You've done a lovely job with them. I'm sure it wasn't easy. But you're not their blood. I am."
Claire moved between us before I could open my mouth.
"She's more our mother than you'll ever be our father."
Something flickered across his face — the fear under all that polish.
"Don't blow up something that could change your sisters' entire lives," he said quietly.
"The college money."
"College. A house. Whatever you want. I'm handing you a future."
"In exchange for what? Letting you march us out at parties like this one?"
His voice dropped, cold now. "You're upset. Fine. You'll calm down. In a few minutes I'm going up on that stage, and I want all four of you standing beside me when I do."
He walked off before she could answer, sure that the money would do his arguing for him.
I pulled Claire into a corner.
"Whatever you want to do, your sisters and I are right behind you. You want to walk out this second, we walk."
She shook her head. Her eyes were suddenly very clear.
"No," she said. "He wants a stage and a room full of important people watching. I'll give him one."
A microphone crackled to life across the ballroom.
Preston called his daughters forward and gave a smooth little speech about family, forgiveness, and second chances. The room went quiet and warm for him.
The second he finished, Claire stepped up and took the mic out of his hand.
She looked out at all those expensive faces and smiled softly.
"I spent my whole life wondering about my father," she said. "I came tonight because I actually believe people can change."
Preston nodded, pleased.
"But you've all been told my mother kept us hidden from him. That isn't true."
She pulled an envelope out of her purse. A murmur went through the crowd.
"These are my mom's letters," Claire said, her voice steady. "She begged him to be our dad. She kept writing to him even after the doctors told her she was dying. He said no every single time."
Preston's face went gray.
"Claire. Not here. Please."
"You had years to love us when it would've cost you something," she said. "You only wanted us once we made you look good."
Nobody in that hall made a sound.
Claire turned to face him.
"If you really want to be our father, you can start doing it privately. When there's no camera. When nobody important is in the room."
Not one person clapped.
Then the gray-suited man who'd toasted him earlier stepped forward. He kept his voice low, but the mic still caught it.
"Preston. You lied to the board." A pause. "We'll be discussing this Monday morning."
All around us, people were already turning their backs on him.
May you like
Claire gathered her sisters and walked them off the stage, and the five of us went out through the ballroom doors together.
Preston had wanted one night to prove he was their father. Instead, his own daughter had made him prove whether he could become one after the cameras were gone.
