Treasured (The Salvation Society) - Victoria Pinder

Chapter One

Mary

For the first time in my life, I was free. The warm air hit my skin as I exited the airport. One night without my son was going to be awesome. I had not had a me night in years, if not my entire life.

Tonight, I represented my family at a charity benefit where people paid five thousand dollars a ticket to have dinner. So I headed outside and followed the driver who was holding a sign with my name on it.

This was a perk. He took my small bag from me and brought me to a hotel that had a huge lobby with white floors. I’d only seen it in pictures of huge monolith-style hotels, until now. I walked to the front desk, and once I showed my ID, the clerk asked, “Mary Steel?”

She typed fast as I said, “Yes.”

She gave me my license back and a plastic room key while she said, “I’ve checked you in. You have massage, hair, and makeup appointments, and your deliveries are already in the room.”

“Thanks,” I said and read the room number. Inside, my soul did a backflip and jumped up and down. Hair, makeup, massage? This was a dream.

My one-year-old was safe staying with my big brother for the night with cousins checking on them. And I was in the lap of luxury.

I put my card in the gold-framed elevator, which then delivered me to the sixteenth floor.

Music played, and I closed my eyes. Once it stopped, I realized I was on the top floor. I followed the number on the paper, and when I reached my room, I opened the door, happy to see my bedroom was in a separate space from the living room.

This was slightly smaller than my two-bedroom but way larger than the room we’d lived in for a month before I checked into my own place with my baby boy. A year ago, we’d shared a house with another family.

Now I was here—free, safe, and holding down my job—and I had a room to myself that had probably hosted the rich and elite. Okay, so my ex-boyfriend’s boss was going to be in attendance at the charity benefit, but I had never met her, and if I saw her last name on a name tag, I would avoid her. The less he would hear about me, the better. But he wasn’t on the guest list, and my family was running this, so he would be arrested if he came near me.

I let out the breath I so often held when I thought of him, and I wandered into the walk-in closet, where I saw a red dress on a hanger with my name on the plastic bag.

I laughed. At twenty-four, I would now experience a little of what the prom I had missed must have been like. I hugged myself. The phone rang. It was my brother, who was supposed to have been my date to this event until his company took over his life. So he made up for it by offering to pick up my son from our cousin’s house and babysit for the evening.

“How is everything?” he asked.

He would have enjoyed this. Neither of us had two nickels to rub together as children, and we had sported matching black eyes on more than one occasion. I would never let what happened to us happen to my Bruce.

My brother felt the same way. He’d been my protector for years. Now he was the president of his company, with a software app launch scheduled for next month. My heart expanded in my chest as I thought of how proud I was of him. “Joseph, hi. I’m good. Thank you for keeping Bruce.”

“He’s fine. He won’t stop laughing. It’s infectious. He loves to bang on the piano.”

I laughed as I remembered that sound. My son loved noise, and he would probably break the grand piano my brother had in his penthouse.

My heart raced, but then I reminded myself that nothing would happen tonight and that tomorrow I would be home. Bruce was safe. I let out a sigh to slow down the adrenaline and said, “Don’t let him break anything, but I’m excited for tonight.”

“If you need me, I can fly out. Olivia said she’d babysit.”

“No.” His promotion was new, and he needed to show everyone he was capable. I shrugged and took the dress off the hanger as I said, “You need to focus on work. You’re the boss, and you took the night to