I took a deep breath and smoothed my hands over my dark green dress one last time. I looked good. The color made my eyes stand out, especially with my dark hair drawn up into such a deceptively elaborate style. And with the way the dress hugged my curves, I would have no trouble blending in with the upper echelon that we had gathered in the banquet hall.

I smiled, reminding myself of the donation numbers that we were already seeing. Kit, our accounts supervisor, had seemed flustered when I’d arrived, and when he’d blurted out the figure, I’d thought he was going to faint. And this was before I even gave my speech!

I moved through the crowd, identifying the people who I knew had already pledged hefty donations. John Aspberry was among them, one of the forerunners in the current mayoral election. He was my first stop.

When I reached his side, I smiled first at his wife and then at him. “Mr. and Mrs. Aspberry, I’m so delighted that you could take time out of your busy campaign schedule to be here,” I said enthusiastically.

The man inclined his head towards me and launched into a press-worthy statement about how humanitarian aid was one of the cornerstones of his running platform and how he appreciated everything that Le Monde Ensemble did for the community. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask whether he realized that we didn’t only operate there in New York, but I managed to bite it back. Either he knew it, and what he was saying was particularly vague, or he didn’t, and someone in his campaign had just done my charity a very big favor.

Seeing his wife’s laughing eyes, I had to wonder.

I hid a smile of my own behind a flute of champagne, which I raised in a toast to him, in thanks for his generosity. Then I moved on to the next big donor.

A little while later, it was time for me to get up on the stage. I smiled out at the crowd as I waited for the applause to die down. “Thank you, Ms. Olivia Brown, for the kind introduction. It means so much more than I can say to be introduced by one of my greatest idols.”

More applause. Somewhere in the background, someone was still talking, loudly. I wondered if he realized how good the acoustics in this place were.

I resolved to push onwards without calling the man out. With my luck, it would be the would-be mayor or someone equally important.

“Now, I know I’ve already thanked a number of you personally, but I just wanted to thank everyone again for their attendance here tonight and for their generous pledges to our cause. We take great strides as humanity when we remember that every stranger is just another member of our family.”

I clicked through to the start of the slideshow that Jeri had put together for me. There were a number of images, taken from news stories and other sources, of people who had been forced to deal with natural disasters in their lives. I’d steered clear from anything too graphic, but it was designed to make people feel slightly uncomfortable, to get them to open those checkbooks.

Meanwhile, I started to tell my own story, for those who didn’t already know it.

“Tragedy can strike unexpectedly. I should know. When I was a teenager, a wildfire in California destroyed everything I knew and loved—my home, my family, my future. The photos that you see in the news can’t compare to how it feels to be on the inside of a tragedy like that. What it feels like to go back to a home that was perfectly fine days before, only to find it flattened, and every single thing that you owned twisted into a shapeless heap.”

If I closed my eyes, I could still see it: the remains of our bedrooms, our sitting room, our kitchen—all just fragments of glass and twisted metal shapes now. I didn’t even have family photos anymore, except for the photo of my parents that hung in the locket around my neck.

“You might think that people living in the area of a natural disaster will have some warning, that they can prioritize the things that they will need to continue living their lives. But that’s not always the case. With that wildfire, a sudden shift in the winds brought desolation sweeping across vineyards and homesteads that stood tens of miles away from where the wildfire was projected to reach. Just when the firefighters thought they had finally managed to contain it, too.

“It destroyed everything in its path, leaving behind only a small percentage of people who had no choice but to rebuild their whole lives from the foundation up.”

I could still hear that asshole in the background, seeming to grow increasingly loud the longer I went on with my speech. In fact, I bet if I stopped talking, everyone would swivel their heads toward him, like a cartoon. What did it matter, what I was saying, in the face of what he was saying? That’s what his attitude told me.

It incensed me, but I tried to keep my cool.

“But wildfires aren’t the only natural disaster that humans face, of course. Here in New York, there’s the threat of hurricanes. Elsewhere, there are earthquakes, tsunamis, freak storms, long-dormant volcanos, everything under the sun—and the sun itself, when you count drought!” There was a smattering of laughter, and I smiled.

“I don’t mean to sound like the world is ending. I didn’t come here as a harbinger of the apocalypse.” More laughter. “But what I want each and every one of you to do right now is to take a moment and just realize how lucky you are, to be standing here in those beautiful outfits, listening to me prattle on about natural disasters. When this is over tonight, you’ll go home and you’ll kiss your significant other, hug the kids, pat the dog on the head. You’ll think, hey, what a beautiful world we live in.”

I paused to let them reflect, but it soon became clear that we weren’t going to get a moment of silent introspection, thanks to the guy in the back. I hurriedly continued before he could derail my whole speech.

“Some people aren’t as lucky as you,” I reminded them. “And that’s where your donations come in. We’re helping people put their lives back together again: building them those homes that they can go home to, giving them those jobs that they so desperately need, reuniting them with those loved ones that they thought they had lost forever.

“And so, again, I thank you all for being here tonight, and even though I hope you never have to walk a mile in the shoes of a natural disaster survivor, I hope you realize the great impact that we can all have on their lives, when we work together, without boundaries.”

There was loud applause, and I beamed at the audience, glad that they had appreciated the speech. I could even see a few women dotting away tears, which I took as a very good sign. Tearful women were very likely to get their husbands to donate just a little more . . .

But, behind the applause, I could still hear that one guy. I could just barely see him through the crowd. He had a large cluster of girls around him, and clearly that was what had been so important that he couldn’t be bothered to listen to my speech.

I rolled my eyes, wondering how people could be so uncivilized. In fact, I had half a mind to march right over there and tell him what I really thought . . .

As I was on my way across the room, Jeri suddenly linked her arm in mine, pulling me off of my trajectory. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she muttered.

“Jeri! What are you doing?” I hissed. “You must have heard that guy. Everyone heard him. He was going on and on and on during my speech, making it impossible for me to even hear myself think! And what, all because he was trying to get laid?”

“Maybe,” Jeri said. “But that guy is Oliver Lewin, and that guy just pledged fifty thousand dollars to Le Monde Ensemble, no strings attached.”

I blinked at her. “But he doesn’t even know what we do,” I protested. “He didn’t listen at all during the speech.”

Jeri raised an eyebrow at me. “And you don’t think he did his research before buying tickets to come tonight? We did a lot of schmoozing to get other people to come to this event, but Oliver came all on his own.”

I frowned consideringly over toward the man. If I was honest with myself, my first thought was of how attractive he was. He had dark hair that was carelessly swept back and hazel eyes that twinkled as he conversed. He was wearing an expensive dark blue suit that fit him like a glove. It moved seamlessly with him as he talked animatedly to the group of guests that had congregated around him. They were utterly absorbed in the conversation like there was something drawing them to him. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it seemed like he filled the room all on its own.

“Well, whoever his assistant is who decided he should come here, when he clearly doesn’t care about this at all, I guess I have to thank them,” I muttered. “Fifty thousand dollars is a good contribution.”

“It’s an amazing contribution,” Jeri corrected. “Now, do you want me to go over there and thank him?”

“I should do that,” I said faintly, even though that was really the last thing that I wanted to do. No matter how much I appreciated the man’s generosity, I couldn’t help thinking that he was an absolute pig. He clearly had too much money—and it had probably all been handed to him. I bet he’d never had to work a difficult day in his life.

I sneered at him, watching as he used his arms to act out some sort of drunken fall or another, from the looks of it. The guests around him were laughing wildly. As he started to “fall,” he threw his arms back, knocking into a nearby pedestal.

The ornate vase on top of the pedestal wobbled for just a moment, and I could see the exact second that Oliver realized what he had done. He tried to turn, but he was off-balance from his play-acting, and he couldn’t get his feet back under him in time to turn and catch it. Instead, the vase fell to the floor.

If my speech hadn’t been enough to silence the guy, the vase crashing to the ground and shattering into a dozen pieces finally was. In fact, the entire room went silent, with people turning to stare at Oliver, who at least had the grace to look chagrined.

I started forward, unable to help it anymore, shaking off Jeri’s arm as she tried to stop me.

Oliver’s eyes scanned the crowd and then settled on me. “Do you work for this thing?” he asked.

I froze, momentarily taken aback. Then, I drew myself up to my full height. “Do I work for this thing?” I asked, my voice shrill even to my own ears. I paused, taking a deep breath to collect myself. “I just so happen to be the founder and president of Le Monde Ensemble,” I told him. “Which you might know if you had bothered to listen when I was up on the stage before.”

Oliver appraised me for a moment and then looked past me. “I should probably talk to someone who works for the venue instead, then. I assume a broken vase is a little below your lofty status.”