Page 19 of Silver Fox's Secret Triplets
Now, sitting in my kitchen surrounded by the evidence of the life I had built without him, I knew that belief had been nothing more than a beautiful, dangerous fantasy.
8
DUNCAN
The afternoon sun beat down on the asphalt path that wound through Boston Common, the heat radiating up from the pavement in waves that made my lungs work harder than they should have. My running shoes pounded out a steady rhythm against the ground, each step a measured beat that matched the cadence Nick maintained beside me. We had been at this for twenty minutes, settling into the comfortable pace that came from years of Sunday runs together.
Nick's breathing remained even despite the heat, his stride fluid and controlled. At fifty-one, he was nine years older than me, but his discipline with fitness showed in the way he moved—no wasted motion, no signs of fatigue. He had been trying to get me to talk about the retirement plans for the past two miles, circling the topic the way he approached difficult board discussions.
"You're serious about this," he said finally, his words coming between breaths but without strain. "The early retirement."
I adjusted my pace slightly, letting my legs find their natural rhythm. The park was busy for a Sunday afternoon—families with strollers, couples walking dogs, teenagers sprawled onblankets under the shade of old oak trees. The normalcy of it felt foreign after spending so many weekends in the office, buried in quarterly reports and strategic planning sessions.
"Dead serious." I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. "I've been thinking about it for months."
"Months?" Nick's voice carried surprise. "You never mentioned it before last week."
I hadn't mentioned it because admitting the depth of my dissatisfaction felt dangerous, even to someone I trusted. Nick was chairman of the board, my closest friend, and the person who had helped me rebuild Walsh Strategic after the disaster with Meranda. But he was also invested in the company's future, and my departure would create complications he didn't need.
"I've been working through it," I said. "Trying to figure out what comes next."
The path curved around a small pond where ducks floated lazily on the surface, occasionally diving for food that children threw from the banks. A young father stood at the water's edge, holding the hand of a toddler who squealed with delight every time a duck came close to shore. The scene was peaceful, uncomplicated, free from the political maneuvering and calculated risks that defined my daily existence.
"You're forty-two years old," Nick said. "That's not retirement age—that's barely middle-aged."
"Age is relative."
"No, it's not. It's mathematical. You have decades of productivity ahead of you, decades of building and creating and making an impact. Why would you walk away from all of that now?"
The question hit at the core of my uncertainty. By every external measure, I was at the peak of my career. Walsh Strategic had recovered from the Meranda debacle and grown stronger, our client base expanding, our reputation solid. Ihad more money than I could spend in two lifetimes, more influence than most men achieved in their entire careers, more opportunities than I had time to pursue.
And yet every morning when I walked into that office, I felt hollow. Empty. Going through the motions of a life that no longer held meaning for me.
"Impact," I repeated, tasting the bitterness of the word. "What kind of impact am I making, Nick? We help rich people get richer. We navigate zoning laws and building permits and tax structures so that developers can put up another shopping center or office complex. Where's the meaning in that?"
"You employ hundreds of people. You contribute to the economy. You?—"
"I make money." The words came out harsh but they were laced with years of dissatisfaction. "That's all. I'm very good at making money for myself and for my clients, but I've lost sight of why any of it matters."
We ran in silence for several minutes, the only sounds our breathing and the rhythmic impact of our feet on the path. I could feel Nick processing what I had said, weighing my words against his own understanding of success and fulfillment. He was a practical man, someone who found satisfaction in concrete achievements and measurable results. The idea of walking away from a thriving business probably seemed insane to him.
"When did this start?" he asked eventually.
The question required an honest answer I wasn't sure I could give. When had the emptiness begun? When had I stopped feeling excited about new projects and started going through the motions instead?
"Meranda," I said finally. "After what happened with Meranda."
Nick's pace faltered slightly. We rarely talked about Meranda Hawkins anymore, the woman who had been my businesspartner and had slowly become something more complex and undefined. The woman who had betrayed both our professional relationship and whatever personal connection we had been building in order to position herself for a hostile takeover of my own company.
"That was years ago," Nick said. "You rebuilt everything. You came back stronger."
"Professionally, yes." I adjusted my stride as we approached a slight incline. "But personally? I've been running on empty ever since."
The truth of that admission settled between us as we crested the hill. Years of throwing myself into work with single-minded intensity, years of avoiding any relationship that might require emotional investment, years of building walls so high that I had forgotten what it felt like to want something beyond the next quarterly report.
Meranda had taught me that mixing business with personal feelings was a recipe for disaster. Our partnership had started as purely professional—two ambitious people with complementary skills and shared goals. But working closely together had created an intimacy that I had mistaken for something deeper. I had begun to believe that we were building something permanent, not realizing that she was using our connection to gather information about company vulnerabilities.
The betrayal had been surgical in its precision. She had identified key clients who might be willing to follow her to a competing firm, had documented every strategic weakness in our business model, had even recorded private conversations where I had expressed doubts about specific deals. When she made her move, she was prepared for every counter-argument I might raise.
