Page 121 of Most Eligible Billionaire

“I’m going on a plane with a dog and a teenager. I can’t take my tools, too.”

“How are you going to make jewelry?”

I swallow. “I’ll figure it out.”

“I’m taking them all,” she declares with tears in her eyes. “And I’m keeping them for you for when you return. You belong here.”

It’s a sweet thing to say, but in the back of my mind, I think,You don’t know about Vonda.

On the way back, I have the Lyft drive along Central Park past Henry’s building. I make him stop across the street and I look up there, wanting to catch a glimpse of him. The kitchen light is on.

Is Henry there? Is he celebrating?

I wasn’t pretending.

I’d be a fool to believe that. He lives for that company. He protects what’s his.

I wasn’t pretending. We got this, Vicky.

I sit there and let myself sink into the feeling of his words being true, like trying on a plush and beautiful coat that you can never afford but you want to feel it around you, and for a second, maybe you even believe.

And it feels so good.

Thirty-One

One month later

Henry

It’sthree twenty-two in the morning and I’m lying in bed, thinking about her. Missing her.

I build a lot of residential projects, create a lot of homes for people, but the home I found with Vicky was beyond anything even I could’ve dreamed up.

Now it’s rubble.

And not the cool kind you can turn into furniture. It’s toxic and twisted up with unbearable loss, not to mention anger with myself.

And every time I see a griffin, or that ice cream she likes, or a mime, or a hundred other stupid things, that rubble pile gets deeper. And every time I get the urge to tell her some interesting news or a funny realization, I remember I can’t.

And the pile gets deeper.

Why did I listen to her when she told me not to go after her that day?

Well, I know why. I wanted to give her a little space. I wanted to respect her in a way that the world hadn’t.

Fool move.

I underestimated the trauma that sixteen-year-old Vonda endured, underestimated how deeply it burned.

A day later it was too late. She and Carly were gone. Vanished. When Vicky vanishes, she doesn’t mess around.

I got the company, just like she said I would. I got it back—full control. Cold comfort.

I pour myself a scotch and wander out onto my veranda where she fed me cookies and joked about tea cozies. I know what they are now. I looked it up.

The night is mild for late October. I stare up at the moon, wondering if she might be looking at it this very moment. A cliché.

It’s unlikely she’s moongazing. It’s probably daytime where she is; that’s what our PI thinks. He had a lead for Hong Kong. A few continental European cities. Nothing panned out.

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