Chapter 20: The Anniversary

June's POV

Monique's hand was still in the air where the microphone had been.

"Thatcher," she said, with a bright, strangled laugh. "We're in the middle of a presentation."

"You're finished," he said.

He said it into the microphone, so that two hundred people heard it and the chandeliers heard it too.

The room stopped breathing.

I stood at the back, in her green dress, with my laminated card against my ribs.

I started walking down the aisle.

Thatcher looked at the room. His grey eyes were calm and the hand holding the microphone was not.

"Good evening," he said. "I'm Thatcher Kincaid. Some of you have seen me say no to a woman on this stage."

A few phones went up.

"Eight weeks ago I did it in front of all of you. I was cruel about it. I said please, so that nobody would think it was a game."

Somebody at table two said, "Oh my God."

I knew that voice. It was the same woman, in a new hat.

"I want to take it back," said Thatcher. "June Abernathy. Third-shift front desk. Would you come up?"

I walked the rest of the way.

I climbed the three stairs, and I took my place beside him, at the same microphone, in front of the same banner.

He turned to the corner of the stage.

"Could we get something slow?"

The quartet leader looked at the cellist, and the cellist looked at me.

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