Chapter 22: The Banquet

The Harbormen award banquet was in the same ballroom as the gala.

It had the same stage, the same chandeliers, and nine hundred people at round tables, eating chicken.

I wore the dark gray dress I had altered myself.

Brielle stood beside me at the side door in silver, holding her phone at her hip.

"You sure?" she said.

"No."

"Good. Me neither."

The owner of the Harbormen was a tall man with white hair and a face.

He had met me in a corridor an hour before, read the statement without a word, and handed it back.

"Whatever you decide to say," he'd told me, "the microphone is yours for five minutes."

On the stage, a presenter in a tux was reading from a card.

"And now, our Harbormen Family Award, for the woman who has been the heart of this franchise for ten years. Gianna Marchetti!"

The applause was warm and loud.

Gianna rose from the front table in a black dress and a string of pearls, with a hand to her heart.

She climbed the steps with Dario's arm under her elbow.

He didn't look up.

She reached the podium, wiped one eye, and opened her mouth.

"Thank you, thank you. I only did what any mother..."

"Excuse me," I said.

I walked to the foot of the stage.

Nine hundred heads turned, and I heard my own heels on the parquet.

The owner nodded from his seat.

"Mrs. Marchetti has said kind things to me for ten years," I said into the microphone a stagehand handed me. "I'd like to read her something back."

Gianna's smile hung in the air.

"Bella, not now."

"You called it a formality. I'm going to read the formality."

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