Kate followed me down the street as we ignored Brian’s protests. All the anger I’d had boiling in me for so long was cooling off.

  Kate waited several minutes before giving me a little nudge. “How are you feeling?”

  “Honestly?” I said. “I feel… nothing. But in a good way. It was like this little fire was burning inside me for the last few months. It had been there so long I stopped really noticing it, but it was always there, always pressing on the back of my brain. I think I forgive them,” I said, shrugging.

  “Woah, wait.” Kate put her hand on my arm, stopping me on the busy street and pulling me beside a building. “The point wasn’t to make you forgive them. You were just supposed to get everything off your chest so you could move on.”

  “I did. And I think the only way to really move on is to actually forgive them. Otherwise I’m going to be carrying that grudge around for the rest of my life, you know? It doesn’t mean I’m going to ever want to talk to them again. It just means I’m done being angry. They made shitty decisions and I forgive them for it, but I also learned about who they really were, and now I choose not to be involved with them. And fuck it. I forgive myself, too. I was a coward and I ran, but I’m not going to waste any more time being pissed at myself for that, either.”

  “Oh,” Kate said. She seemed to take a few minutes to sort that out in her head as we began walking again. “Well, good, I think,” she finally said.

  “Yeah, it is,” I agreed. “When we get back I’m going to call my parents and explain everything that happened, too.”

  For the first time in months, I felt light. A weight had slid off my shoulders and I felt almost incredible. Almost perfect. If only Christian had still been waiting for me back at the apartment. If only I could go to him and gush about how proud of myself I was for actually going through with that. Instead, there was a hole inside me where all those feelings wanted to go. If I thought about him too long, that hole threatened to suck everything in and leave me empty.

  So I forced a smile, took a deep breath, and replayed the look on Brian’s face when I’d soaked him with ice water.

  42

  LOLA

  Max and I arrived outside Christian’s Manhattan apartment. I hadn’t thought I’d ever see the place again, but Max forgot her phone charger and Kate didn’t have the right kind. Apparently, Max still had a key so she said we could just pop in real quick and get our things. According to her, Christian had texted that he was back in Colorado, so there was no chance of an awkward encounter.

  Max went off to her room once we were inside and I paused by the table. There was a note and a pile of cash. A big ass pile of cash, like something you’d see in a movie with drug dealers. It was stacks of bills wrapped in paper denoting the amount. I pushed it aside to read the note, heart pumping.

  Girls,

  Take this money and split it. Stay in NYC as long as you need. Please use the apartment. I arranged to have a place for Max at Highpointe Prep. It’s two blocks down the road and one of the best schools in the city. She can go there if she wants or you can continue tutoring her–whatever you two decide. I know the last thing either of you want is to see me right now, so take as much time as you need. Your job at Stone Financial will be waiting if you still want it, Lola.

  I had no idea how he knew we’d come back. Maybe he didn’t and just hoped.

  Something at the bottom of the note was scratched out so heavily the paper was almost torn. It looked like about a sentence or two. I tried lifting the paper to read it and even turning it to get a better angle with the light, but it was no use. What the hell had he written that he’d wanted to erase so badly?

  My stupid heart whispered that it was probably an apology. Maybe he’d written that he was sorry for how things ended and hoped we could still be… friends? Except I didn’t think he and I had ever really been friends. We’d gone straight from enemies to casually fucking to dating. There wasn’t any in between. Or maybe he’d written that he wanted to talk when I did come back to Colorado, or said that he’d enjoyed the time we had together, or–

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and set the letter down. It didn’t matter what he’d written. He tossed me aside and now it was over. And maybe he was right. Maybe it would be better for me and Max to stay in New York. I could make up for lost time with Kate and we could let her try out this private school. I’d have to fly back and maybe do a road trip to bring Termite home, but that wasn’t such a big deal. I wasn’t sure about leaving behind all the people I’d met in Colorado, though. There was Paisley, Cassie, Chase, the Ashford family, and dozens of other people, even down to my weird landlord.

  “What’s that?” Max said. She had the charger dangling from her hand as she studied the money and note on the table.

  I handed her the note and she read, eyebrows furrowing. “He wants us to stay here?”

  “It sounded more like he thinks we’ll want to stay here.”

  “Do we?” Max asked.

  I frowned. It was strange to remember how different she’d seemed when we first met. She was the prototypical kid who didn’t respect or need authority. And now she was sweetly asking me to make a decision this big for her. I felt the weight of that responsibility and didn’t want to let her down.

  “Don’t you have a boy back in Fairhope?” I asked.

  Max sighed. “I’m not sure if I do anymore.”

  “What? You didn’t tell me that.”

  “Yeah well you and Uncle Stones were so busy being gross I didn’t… I don’t know. But it’s complicated and he’s pissed at me again. That’s why I’ve been disappearing into my room so much since we got here. We’ve been texting a lot because he won’t get on the phone with me right now.”

  “Why don’t we take a few days to think about all of this, then? There’s no reason we have to decide right now. But I want to make sure we both agree, because it’s not just me on the line here.”

  Max worked her lips to the side and I was surprised to see tears welling in her eyes. She pushed them away and then rushed up to hug me. I wasn’t sure what that was about, but I also felt like I could really use a hug, so I squeezed her back and rested my chin on her head.

  I had no idea what the future held for me, but the idea of having Max by my side was sounding more and more like a good thing. I wasn’t exactly sure how that would all legally work out when it came to taking her to doctor’s appointments and that kind of thing, but that was a bridge we could cross when we got there.

  “Thank you,” Max said. “Nobody ever cares what I think, but you do.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling tears of my own welling up in my eyes. I knew how she felt. I’d gone through so much of my life just doing what everybody thought was best for me. I’d learned to shut down my own desires to make sure I was pleasing the people who tried to steer my life. From what I knew of Max, I guessed she felt more like nobody even bothered to try to force her to be a certain way. But at the end of the day we both needed to feel like someone cared what we wanted, even if it was in different ways. I hugged her tighter. “You can always tell me how you’re feeling, okay? Don’t ever forget that.”

  “You can tell me, too,” Max said. “Like you haven’t talked about what Uncle Stones did. Do you need to vent or anything?”

  “Badly,” I admitted. “Maybe we can use some of this ridiculous pile of cash to buy candy, rent a girly movie, and veg out tonight? I could invite Kate over or we could do it just us.”

  “You can invite her. She’s cool.”

  I smiled. “Alright. It’s a date. And don’t think you’re going to get through this without telling me everything about this boy of yours.”

  43

  CHRISTIAN

  When I looked back on the past few weeks, it felt like a tornado had ripped through my world. There’d been a brief period of turmoil, chaos, and change. All my carefully laid plans had been tossed to the wind and now it was over as suddenly as it had begun. I sat in my office with the feeling that the storm was gone and the silence I used to crave now felt oppressive.

  In a few days, Adrian Bellamo would come to Stone Tower and I would execute the plan I’d worked out with the F.B.I. Perry had been my only real contact with them, and the last time we’d talked he had told me not to reach out or make any sign that I was working with them. I had to pretend I was on my own. I also had to pretend I didn’t know Luco Bellamo had listening devices inside my fucking office, along with people who worked for him crawling through my building to keep tabs on me.

  I couldn’t help kicking myself for not simply telling Lola the full truth about what we were up against before everything went to shit. I’d told her people wanted to ruin me, but I hadn’t made it clear how dangerous those people were. If I had…

  I sighed, pushing a stack of papers away as I stood and folded my arms. If this shit with Adrian and his father hadn’t happened, I wondered where I’d be. The company was doing well. All our measurables were up and it was getting harder and harder to claim the expansion to Fairhope was a mistake. We were bringing in new clients from locations that had frankly seemed out of reach from our offices in Manhattan. There were people on the ground shaking hands and doing all the things that helped establish trust.

  Stone Financial was booming. Lola and I had been clicking on all cylinders. Even if some part of me had known it was doomed to fail between us, I still believed we would’ve had more time. Hell, maybe I could’ve even learned to change just enough for her to make things last. I thought about movie night with Max and how good it had felt to be part of something resembling a family, even if it was just a moment. I thought about having my hands on Lola and knowing she was all mine for the night–about waking up next to her and enjoying the act of going to get her breakfast. She had seemed so excited and appreciative to have a hot breakfast before she’d even showered and gotten ready.

  I hadn’t even been having trouble sleeping since I met her. The insomnia that had been following me for years seemed to suddenly and inexplicably dry up. Some of my famously foul moods had gone away once I was sleeping better.

  Now it was just over twenty-four hours since I’d broken things off with her and I could already tell the sleepless nights were back. I laid in bed last night and did nothing but toss and turn, haunted by the ghost of not just Lola, but Max.

  I’d had to be a dick to both of them for this to work, and I didn’t expect them to ever forgive me. I didn’t want them to, because it wouldn’t be safe for them to come back into my life. If it wasn’t Adrian and Luco Bellamo, it’d be something else. I was always going to attract this shit because my position as CEO of Stone Financial gave me access to power and money that people wanted to take advantage of. I’d always be a target, and anyone I cared about would be at risk of being caught in the crossfire.

  On an impulse, I pulled out my phone and dialed Hector’s number. He picked up almost immediately.

  “Is everything okay?”

  I suddenly remembered the bugs from Luco Bellamo all over my office. I started walking fast toward the elevator.

  I chuckled. “Married bliss has made you soft. That’s how you take my calls now?”

  “No. My brother only calling when his world is on fire has taught me to expect the worst when you call. So what’s wrong?”

  I took the elevator to a random floor and headed for the nearest men’s room while I tried to find the right way to explain what was going through my head. “How did you know you wouldn’t regret walking away from the business?” I froze in place when I heard my own words. Where the hell had that come from?

  Hector paused, too. The implication of my question was plain as day, and neither of us missed it. “I didn’t know. But I decided I could always find another job or another company. Candice seemed like a once in a lifetime kind of person.”

  “Fuck,” I growled. “Is that other job you found writing for Hallmark cards?”

  Hector laughed. “Since when do you make jokes? I thought you burnt that out of your personality years ago.”

  “Yeah, well,” I ran my hand through my hair. I didn’t say that it was Lola who revived that part of me. She helped me remember how to have fun and let go sometimes. She’d helped me remember what it felt like when I stopped gripping my life so hard I could barely breathe. “So does any part of you regret leaving all this behind?”

  “Hell no.” My brother laughed, but there was a pause. “Alright, you know what? That’s not entirely true. Yeah, I miss having that power at my fingertips. I miss waking up and knowing I was going to prove to myself that I was competent and good as hell at what I did. That was a nice feeling when I went to sleep at night–knowing that just about nobody else could’ve done what I did that day. But I still wouldn’t go back if I could. I think the problem is you can’t have both. You can’t give all of yourself to the company and to your woman. So the question isn’t whether you’ll miss being the CEO if you left, it’s which existence do you want for yourself?”

  I ran my tongue over my teeth, thoughts churning. “Hm,” I said. “Alright, well, I gotta get going. Some of us have more on our plate than baking cookies with our wives and mending white picket fences.”

  “You’re the one who called me, asshole. And we’re cooking brownies, actually. Not cookies.”

  I grinned. “Thanks, Hector.”

  There was another long pause. “You’re welcome. And you don’t have to admit this to me because I already know what you’re going through. This shit is scary. It feels permanent and in a lot of ways it is. But we made our company by taking risks. Insane risks. We trusted our instincts, though, and it paid off. You’re not going to be the CEO of your personal life if you aren’t willing to do the same thing, man. Take a risk or two. Trust your instincts. Believe you’re more than just some boring ass CEO who gets hard at the sight of a clean spreadsheet.”

  I nodded, even though I knew he couldn’t see. “Alright,” I said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  I hung up and hung my head, letting my forehead thud against the bathroom mirror. Was Hector right? Was I just being a coward this whole time? I didn’t know the answer, but I knew I had to at least follow through with the plan to get Luco Bellamo out of my life. Maybe once that was over, I could try to think realistically about what I wanted to do.

  Then again, I may have already fucked that option up. Lola probably didn’t want to hear an apology. I’d been a complete asshole, and even if I decided to do the unthinkable to win her back, there was no telling if it’d work. I didn’t even know if Max would ever forgive me. I still didn’t know if I could seek their forgiveness in good conscience. What if it ended up putting them in danger again?

  Fuck.

  44

  LOLA

  Two days ago, Christian abruptly broke things off. I thought back to the stages of grief I’d learned about in college and felt like I was already well on my way through the entire process. First there’d been denial, then anger, and blah blah. But instead of ending at acceptance I just found myself feeling dejected.

  Everything else seemed to be coming together in my life. I’d said my piece to Brian and Chastity. I deleted all the texts and voicemails I still hadn’t bothered to read and listen to from them. I even went as far as making a social media post to address the whole thing to the rest of my friends and former friends who had been trying to reach me since the not-wedding. It wasn’t a tearful thing, though. It was just a concise, to-the-point post that closed all the doors on that past life.

  And now I was sitting across from my mom. In typical good mom fashion, she’d immediately forgiven me for everything and told me she was just happy to see me. My mom was in her late fifties and wore her graying hair in a short bob just like she had when she was my age. There were crinkles around her eyes but she was still beautiful and always supportive. I’d forgotten how good it felt to know she was in my corner.

  My dad was looking around Christian’s apartment with his hands shoved in his blue blazer. He was a real estate agent who always dreamed of making it big and driving fancy sports cars, but that dream never really materialized. I figured that was why he put so much pressure on me to marry into money. To him, walking away from Brian was like the last death blow to his dream of being part of that world. I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he inspected Christian’s apartment. Not only had his daughter failed him once, now I’d failed him again by letting an even bigger fish go.

  Max was in her room watching a show with Kate, and the silence of my dad’s unspoken judgment was starting to eat at me.

  “Just say it, Dad,” I sighed.

  My mom clutched her cup a little tighter, eyes shifting in his direction. She was the best cheerleader for me, but she’d always deferred to him. If he wanted to say something that would break my spirits, the most I could expect from her was a soft, “Oh, Howard. Go easy on her.” And of course he’d simply grumble for her to be quiet and continue on.

  “So he just broke things off?” My dad asked, gesturing to the apartment, eyebrows raised. My dad was thickly built with a large belly, a floppy dyed brown hair-style, and a fleshy face. When things were good, I thought of him as a comforting rock in my life. When they were bad, I saw him as more of a caricature of the run-down suburban dad. “You didn’t push him to do this?”

  “Howard,” my mom said. “She’s still hurting. Don’t–”

  “I’m not blaming anyone.” My dad raised his hands, shaking his head. “I’m only asking. It looks like she had quite the thing going here with this guy. An apartment like this would easily be north of ten, maybe twenty thousand a month. And this is just his extra place out of town? We’re talking real money here.”

  “Dad… For once can we not make this about the money?”

 

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