The warm, golden light inside Bellini’s seemed to dim as Edward Hale’s words hung in the air.

My hands froze over the emerald silk. The needle hovered millimeters from the fabric.

"Where did you get that napkin?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Charlotte looked down at her open wallet, realized what I was staring at, and immediately snapped it shut. A sudden wave of intense emotion flashed across her face—shock, confusion, and a defensive wall slamming down in a fraction of a second.

"A man left it on my gallery desk two weeks ago," Charlotte said coldly. "An older man who refuses to understand that the word no means no."

"Edward," I said softly.

Charlotte’s jaw tightened, her green eyes flashing with sudden, dangerous anger. "You know him?"

"I met him once," I replied truthfully, setting the needle down. "On Christmas Eve. My daughters and I were at Bellini’s. We had twenty dollars to our name, and he paid for our dinner."

Charlotte let out a harsh, bitter laugh. She paced two steps across the narrow workshop floor, her high heels clicking sharply against the linoleum.

"Of course he did," Charlotte spat, her voice laced with sarcasm. "Classic Edward Hale. Playing the benevolent savior to total strangers while his own family lies in ruins. Did he give you a speech about how lonely he is? Did he look at your daughters with tears in his eyes?"

"He told us he made a terrible mistake seven years ago," I said calmly, refusing to match her aggressive energy. "He said he broke your mother's heart."

"He didn't just break her heart!" Charlotte snapped, stepping closer, her hands clenched into fists inside her coat pockets. "My mother was dying of early-onset Alzheimer's! She spent her last two years in a memory care facility, crying every single night because she didn't recognize where she was! And do you know where Edward was?"

I stayed silent, listening to the agony bleeding from her words.

"He was in Tokyo!" Charlotte shouted, her voice trembling with a decade of suppressed rage. "He was closing a four-billion-dollar acquisition of a shipping conglomerate! He missed her last moments! He missed her funeral because his private jet was grounded in London for a board meeting! And then he tried to write a check to my gallery to make up for it!"

The air in the small basement room felt suffocating. The pain in Charlotte’s voice was identical to the hollow, quiet devastation I had seen in Edward’s eyes on Christmas Eve.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I truly am, Charlotte."

Charlotte took a deep breath, pushing a dark curl of hair behind her ear, visibly forcing her professional composure back into place.

"I didn't come here to unload my baggage on you, Abby," she said quietly. "My father left that napkin on my desk with a note. He wrote: 'These two little girls reminded me of what you used to look like when you believed in miracles. If you ever want to see what real courage looks like, look up their mother.'"

Charlotte looked at me, her gaze sweeping over my faded coat, my worn boots, and the extraordinary skill evident in the hand-stitched silk gown resting on my lap.

"He was trying to manipulate me into reaching out to you," Charlotte said, a soft, cynical smile touching her lips. "He thought if I saw a struggling single mother, I’d take pity on you and, by extension, forgive him."