And then she checked it again, because her hands had gone cold.

It was the exact day, eighteen months earlier, that Ansel had come to her in tears and begged her to sell her late grandmother’s jewelry to cover an urgent emergency at his company.

Her grandmother had raised her.

The jewelry was not valuable to anyone but her: a thin gold bracelet, an emerald ring, and a locket with a tiny family portrait inside it.

She had cried for days over selling them.

She had done it because her husband had looked her in the eyes and sworn it was to save his career, and that he would buy every piece back the moment his bonus came through.