Chapter 3

Madge set the blue folder down on the long table beside the stage.

A staffer was checking through the thank-you speech and looked up. "Manager James's remarks are in here?"

Madge flipped to the first page.

"They are. Zachery and I went over them together."

I was standing right behind her, and my feet stopped moving.

That first page still had the spots I'd circled in red pen the night before.

Zachery had said the year-end thank-you couldn't sound empty.

So I'd gone through all of it for him. The proposals clients had sent back over the years, the bids he'd rewritten past midnight, that one project that had lost money, the hardest one of all.

All he'd given me back was one word. Thanks.

And now Madge was holding that stack of pages out to the staffer, right in front of everyone.

"You can keep the last line. Zachery likes it too."

The stage lights came up.

Zachery walked out, lowered his head, and read that line:

"When things were hardest, someone stayed up through every one of those late nights with me."

Someone in the crowd started calling out.

"Madge, Manager James is thanking you!"

Someone raised a phone and aimed it at her.

"Say a few words too, Madge. Getting him through to tonight couldn't have been easy."

Madge didn't dodge the camera.

She only bowed her head and smiled, her fingers still pressed on my folder.

The thank-you I'd deleted and rewritten three times last night had become the step she stood on in front of everyone.

Zachery heard the laughter from below, and he still finished the page.

He didn't miss a single word.

The camera swung to Madge.

She stood at the side of the stage, still holding my folder, and dipped her head with a little smile.

Zachery paused for half a second.

Then he kept reading.

I walked over to the long table.

"Give me the folder."

Madge looked up.

"Miss Fox, Zachery still needs it in a bit."

"My things are inside."

She didn't let go.

"But tonight's already running on this."

I looked at the family badge on her chest.

"Who gave you the run of things?"

Zachery came down off the side of the stage just in time to hear it.

He glanced at the staffer first, then at me.

"I told her to take it."

My hand stopped in midair.

"Don't change anything else tonight. Madge already matched it all up this far for me."

"That's the speech I wrote."

"I know."

He reached out and pinned the folder down.

"But right now it's my gala."

The moment those words landed, the staffer beside us dropped their head and started tidying the cue cards.

Nobody cared who had actually written that speech.

My cufflink box was still sitting on the long table too.

The lid had come open at some point, and the little card inside was showing halfway out.

Madge apologized under her breath. "I was looking for the materials just now. I didn't notice."

I reached for it.

Zachery was a step faster and snapped the box shut.

"We'll deal with it later."

A corner of the card caught in the lid. There was a small tearing sound.

I froze.

He froze too.

By the time I pulled the card free, the corner of the paper had already split.

It was in my mother's handwriting, written while she was sick.

"May my daughter be happy."

Half of the last character had been torn away.

The cufflink rolled out of the box, knocked against the table leg, and left a dent in the silver.

Madge's eyes went red at once.

"I'm sorry, I really didn't know this was something your mother left you."

She kept the apology quiet, just loud enough for the few people beside her to hear.

Someone immediately handed her a tissue.

Someone else murmured to me, "Let it go, it's not like she meant to."

They didn't know how many nights that card had gotten my mother through, and they'd already ruled Madge innocent.

Zachery moved in front of her without thinking.

"Madge didn't do it on purpose."

I looked at him.

"My mother left this for me."

He glanced at the card in my hand, then around at everyone.

"Gail, there are so many people here today."

"You can't replace it."

His face darkened too.

"A card, a pair of cufflinks, I'll make all of it up to you."

He reached out to pull the card from my hand.

I didn't let go.

I held the torn card in my fist.

But he reached over and pushed the folder back in front of Madge.

"Get the group photo confirmed first."

Madge took the folder and answered softly. Okay.