“Number one: she loves with her whole heart, even when she’s trying not to.”
Madison’s breath hitched. He’d cut straight to her soul right off the bat.
“Number two: she has excellent taste in bedtime stories. Number three: the sound of her voice when I can’t sleep at night.” He looked right into the camera again, and the sheer vulnerability in his gaze left no mistake—this wasn’t just an elaborate goodbye. He was opening up to her in a way he never had before.
She inhaled a ragged breath, tears clouding her vision as he went on.
“Number four: she’s the best knitter I know.” A secret smile tipped his lips, and Madison laughed. “Number five: children and animals love her, even when she’s afraid they won’t. Number six: I love the way her pink toenails perfectly match the polka dots on her bathrobe. Number seven: I love her untamed hair.”
Felicity and the editorial assistants cast confused glances at Madison’s carefully flat-ironed do, as did about half a dozen other Fashionista staffers who’d wandered into the break room since Jack began reciting his list.
Madison barely noticed their curious stares. She was rooted to the spot, hanging on Jack’s every word, pressing her hand to her heart as if she could tuck everything he said deep inside where she could take his words out and replay them again later. Over and over.
On the screen he took a deep breath, and the sheet of paper in his hands trembled ever so slightly. “Number eight: she’s the bravest, most beautiful person I’ve ever met. Number nine: my girls miss her. I miss her.”
Madison sank down into the closest chair. She could barely see Jack’s face on the screen anymore, because she’d begun crying in earnest.
“I knew it,” Felicity said quietly beside her. “He misses you, too.”
“And number ten?” Meghan prompted onscreen as she dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a tissue. “What’s the last one, Fired Up?”
“Number ten is the simplest one. I love her for the same reason I love Vermont—she always smells like apples and fresh air.” He looked up from the list, and his eyes shone brighter than Madison had ever seen them before. Forget-me-not blue. “Like home.”
Everything that happened next seemed to pass in a blur—Meghan gushing over Jack’s letter, the camera switching to a cooking segment before Madison could fully register what she’d just witnessed, the oohs and ahhs of her coworkers, especially Felicity who’d darted back to their cubicle and returned with Madison’s handbag and a pair of ballerina flats from the fashion closet.
“Here. You’re going to need these.” She thrust the items toward Madison. “If you hurry, you can make it to the studio before Jack leaves. You are going after him, aren’t you?”
Felicity’s sense of urgency pulled Madison out of her dreamy little trance. He was right there in New York. In the midst of all the shock and excitement of what he’d just done, that significant detail hadn’t even registered in her consciousness.
Madison nodded. Every cell in her body screamed. Yes! Yes, yes, yes. Of course she was going after him.
She kicked off her Jimmy Choo shoes and slid into the ballet flats. They were pink, just like the polka dots on the bathrobe that she couldn’t believe Jack remembered when he’d only seen her in it once.
As she stood and slung her purse over her shoulder, the happy chatter in the break room came to an abrupt end, replaced by an awkward silence. All eyes turned toward the doorway, where Angelica Kent, resplendent in a floral Erdem dress Madison had last seen on Kate Middleton, stood with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.
“Well, well, I wondered where our entire staff had gone,” she said. “Everyone, get back to work.”
Felicity and the others scattered in a flurry of clicking heels and a swish of fine fabric, leaving Madison alone in her handmade sweater and flat shoes to deal with Angelica.
Her boss eyed her from head to toe, and Madison had never missed Mr. Grant and his brown tie so much in her life. “That means you, too, Madison.”
“I’m sorry, Angelica. Thank you for the opportunity.” Joy like she’d never known filled Madison’s chest. She was going back to Lovestruck—back to Jack and his girls. Back to Alice and Toby and the town where she’d left her heart. Vermont didn’t hate her. It never had, but it had changed her and that was where she belonged. Now and forever. “But I quit.”
One minute, Jack was sitting on the big orange sofa on the Good Morning Sunshine set with a camera in his face, and the next...
Nothing.
He was pretty sure that Meghan Ashley and the producer, who apparently had family in Lovestruck, both shook his hand and thanked him for appearing on the show, but everything happened so fast, he couldn’t remember a word either of them had said. The cameras vanished, moving to the opposite side of the room in a flash, where a cookbook author was busy whipping up a gluten-free alternative to traditional tacos. A production assistant unclipped the microphone from his lapel, talking a mile a minute as she did so. When Jack tried to respond to a question she’d just asked, she shook her head and tapped the sleek black earpiece attached to her head. She hadn’t even been speaking to him.
No one was. The great mystery of Fired Up in Lovestruck had been solved, and apparently, everyone had moved on to something else with lightning speed. Jack had been longing for this exact scenario for weeks, but now that it was finally happening, he felt empty all of a sudden.
Empty...and more alone than he’d ever been in his entire life.
But what could he have possibly expected? It wasn’t as if Madison would see him on television, drop everything she was doing and come find him. That was so far beyond what he’d allowed himself to hope that it was laughable. He just hoped she’d somehow
