Page 129 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

She regards me with that gaze that used to hold so much trust. It’s all gone now.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

I know.She mouths it. Maybe she whispers it. My pulse is whooshing too hard for me to tell.I know.

And with that, the most precious thing in my life walks out the door.

Everything in me yearns to follow her. I ball my fists, force myself to stay. Disrespecting her wishes, that’s how I got into this mess.

The one thing I asked you.

I stand there for the longest time, twisting with torment. I always find a solution to everything. A hole I can break through to find the answers, but this thing is frozen solid. There’s no hole anywhere, unless you count the one in my heart.

After what feels like forever, I go back to my board. So many promising pathways and new discoveries. All irrelevant.

I wander to the window, but I know I won’t see her. She’ll wait to cross the street until she’s out of my view. She’ll think of that out of kindness, so that I don’t see her walking away from this building one last time.

I press my hand to the glass, feel the rumble of Manhattan. The crash of this relationship.

I wander around after work. Streets that won’t have her on them. I head home, earlier than usual, at a loss for what to do with my free time.

I sit out on the veranda where we ate pizza once.

I tell myself I’ll be able to concentrate on finishing the dehydration formula now, but the mad frenzy of it is gone.

Ironic that I’d make my breakthrough as soon as my frenzy to make it disappeared.

Or maybe not—maybe I made my breakthroughbecausethe frenzy disappeared. Because Lizzie helped give me perspective that widened my world. Because she bothered to look beyond my moods and my accomplishments. With her I’m real. Was real.

Why couldn’t I have let her go to Fargo?

I could’ve visited her there. Flown her back here. Supported her in ways she’d appreciate. Respected and supported her. Instead I did the opposite.

She has every right to be angry.

I text her later that night.

I’m sorry.

Thursday night I take a long run in the park, as if I can pound the misery out of myself, but it seems to compound.

I text her again. I tell her I’m sorry. I add a heart emoji.

Later that night, I pull my new egg pan out of my cupboard, just to touch something she picked out for me.

I turn it over and over, musing about the nature of space and time. How close yet distant that moment was. How happy I felt. It seems baffling that I can touch something she touched last, put my fingers exactly where hers rested, but the whole world is different.

I order some groceries and teach myself to make an omelet off YouTube. As if that might bring her closer in some vague way.

It only outlines her absence.

Now I’m just a man who can make himself an omelet.

Out on the streets, the crowds seem thicker and angrier. The décor and treats throughout Vossameer are pathetic.

I call Sasha into my office to fire her. She seems to be expecting it, but what she doesn’t expect is the news that Lizzie went to bat for her when I was going to fire her the first time. I tell her what Lizzie said about her being a hard worker, a dedicated employee, deserving of another chance.

“You blew that chance,” I say. “She showed you honesty and decency, and you blew it.”

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