Center Stage: Magnolia Steele Mystery #1 Read Online Free PDF

I said that night. For what I accused you of . . .”
    I turned back to him and forced a smile. “That’s all water under the bridge.”
    “Why didn’t you answer any of my phone calls? It wasn’t our first fight. We should have at least talked it over.”
    I didn’t feel like going for a stroll down memory lane, and besides, I’d long ago decided that walking away from Tanner was the best thing that had come out of me leaving Franklin. If I’d stayed, I probably would have married him and been miserable. I needed to end this conversation and end it soon. “It had nothing to do with you, Tanner.”
    I tried to walk around him, but he blocked my path.
    “How could you say that, Magnolia?” His voice was thick with anger. “You slept with me, and then you ran away and never came back. You didn’t answer my texts or calls or even my emails. It’s like you fell off the face of the earth.”
    “I’m sorry if I hurt you . . .”
    “That’s not enough, Maggie. Your apology is ten years too late. Why? Why did you leave?”
    “Apology?” I spat out in a whisper as I glared up at him. “You’re the one who owed me an apology!”
    “And I would have given you one if you hadn’t run away like a spoiled little brat.”
    People had turned their heads to listen to our conversation, and I wished the floor would open and swallow me whole. So much for staying under the radar. “The reason I left had nothing to do with you.”
    “You said that already,” he said, his voice hard. “But that’s not an answer. You owe me an answer.”
    Maybe that was true. But how could I give him an answer I didn’t have? How could I tell him that something terrible had happened, something that had shaped my life despite the fact that I remembered it in feelings instead of words? And besides, if I owed him anything, it wasn’t a fraction of what I owed my momma and Roy. What I owed Maddie.
    “I—” I didn’t have the faintest idea what I was going to say, so perhaps it was a blessing that we were interrupted.
    “Tanner.” A tall blonde in a tight red dress sidled up to him. “You’re talking to one of the wait staff ?” She was nearly his height, which meant she had to be five foot nine without the heels. She looped a possessive hand around his arm.
    He blinked. “Oh. Chelsea. This isn’t one of the wait staff. It’s Magnolia.”
    Her face froze and her gaze turned icy. “Magnolia? Magnolia Steele ?”
    “One and the same,” I grumbled, wishing I could hide in the kitchen.
    “Uh . . .” Tanner stammered. “Magnolia, this is my fiancée, Chelsea Coleman.”
    My blood turned to sludge. Tanner was engaged. The regret caught me off guard, but it wasn’t the kind of regret that comes of jealousy. It was regret for myself—for eighteen-year-old Magnolia Steele who’d had simple dreams and a clear path. Here was another reminder that the girl I’d been was lost to me. On top of my disaster on stage the night before, it was too much. “Congratulations to you both.”
    Her eyes narrowed, and her grip on his arm tightened. “I thought you were in New York?”
    I wasn’t so sure it was a good thing she knew so many details about me. I tried to step around them. “I need to get back to the kitchen.”
    Tanner let me go this time, but I heard Chelsea say behind my back, “Her boobs are so obviously fake.”
    I stopped in my tracks. Let it go, Magnolia. Just let it go . I’d let my temper get the best of me the night before, and look where it landed me. Nevertheless, I found myself spinning around to face her. “My boobs are not fake.”
    The surprise in her eyes told me that while she’d intended for me to hear her, she hadn’t expected me to confront her on it. She gave a little shudder, as if settling her icy exterior back in place. “Then they must be the only thing about you that’s real.”
    I put one hand on my hip, balancing the catering tray with the other. The food sloshed around like the wave pool at