Page 126 of Most Eligible Billionaire

Maybe I’m tired.

Carly is attending a great school, and she’s got a part in a musical on the West End that will be amazing on her résumé when she goes back to New York. I don’t want her to go, but she’ll be eighteen and done with school soon. I want her to be free to chase her dreams.

I’m using the money I got from Locke as seed money to build my dream co-op studio in the ruins of an old warehouse. I’ve got a few investors lined up, and I’m in the process of quietly soliciting bids, blending elements of the Southfield studio with Henry’s vision and some ideas of my own.

I try not to think of him too hard these days or about the way things ended with us. And how I loved to be with him.

How he helped me remember who I was. I sometimes wonder if he had a hand in my mother’s one-eighty.

I still don’t think he meant it when he said he wasn’t pretending. Or, at least, most of me doesn’t think he meant it. A tiny sliver of me thinks he did.

But I still won’t reach out to him. Does that sound screwed up?

It’s just that the memory of him saying he wasn’t faking his feelings for me is like a lottery ticket where you never go and check if you won. So you can never be disappointed that you lost. And when you look at it, you can think maybe it’s something good.

The balsawood griffin sits up on my dresser like that, faithful and loyal and full of possibilities, as if there is still some magic in the world. Like a lottery ticket I never followed up on.

I look at it when I wash dishes. When I make food. When I feel happy. When I feel unhappy.

The studio keeps me busy. There will be subsidized spaces for artisans from all over the world. It’s exciting.

I say goodbye to Hanna and head back to the share office with its hip interior of brick walls and green corrugated metal partitions between desk after desk. I make my way down to my area, saying hi here and there.

I’m surprised to find a large box has been set in the middle of my desk where I have my inspiration photos scattered. It’s addressed to me. No indication of the sender.

I ask the woman who sits next to me if she saw who brought it.

“Courier,” she says, shrugging.

Large as it is, it’s light as a feather. I grab a knife and slit the tape, opening the top.

My eyes don’t know what I’m seeing at first. My mind interprets everything as packing materials, like a company that doesn’t have its shit together decided to go into the packing peanuts business.

But my heart sees. It starts racing, dangerously racing. Fear. Happiness. Wonder.

The box is filled with hundreds of tiny balsawood griffins, intricately carved—I recognize Henry’s hand in every claw, every tiny wing.

I dig my fingers through them and I draw up a handful.

“Four hundred twenty-five.”

I spin around. My eyes meet his. My breath hitches. Shivers skim over me.

He’s leaning on a partition behind me in a deep brown suit, dark hair tousled and just a little bit too long.

Smuckers jumps at his legs, tail wagging.

“Henry.”

“I carved one every day you were gone,” he says.

My voice shakes. “You can’t be here.”

He pushes off the partition and comes to me, defiance sparkling in his eyes.

I grip the table edge behind me like that might stop the room from spinning.

He stops in front of me. He stands there, watching my eyes.

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