I’ve loved Jessie from the first moment I saw her. For twenty years I’ve been holding onto her. It’s time I let her go.

I want her to be happy. I want Gavin to be happy. Now, I suppose I’m glad I told Jessie it was all a game. It lets her be free to have a future without any guilt or regret or what ifs. She can think of me as a malicious bastard and I can stay far away.

I make it to my Manhattan office by lunch. Justin Van Cleeve, the extremely expensive lawyer that I keep on retainer, meets me at the elevator door. He’s usually immaculately dressed in a business suit and tie, but today his suit is wrinkled and his tie is undone. He has bags under his eyes.

“I’ve been calling and texting since last night,” Justin says. “You’ve got DEFCON 1 here. Were you in the hospital? Dead? Abducted by aliens? Will, you’ve got problems.”

I shove aside the pain of Jessie and Gavin and focus on Justin. A business crisis. Since last night? Not the merger then.

Perfect.

I can handle business. It doesn’t require emotions, or friendship, or feelings.

“What is it? Get me up to speed.”

We walk into my office. Justin closes the glass door and lowers the blinds. “Your assistant booked your jet to London. He has your suitcase and passport ready. The helicopter lands on the roof to take you to the airport in”—he looks at his watch—“twenty minutes.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Any reason I’m flying to London today?” Not that I’m unhappy about the distraction.

Justin rubs his eyes. He looks like he had a terrible night. “There’s an army of lawyers camped out in your London office. With your father. He’s claiming legal ownership of the entire company. It’s garbage, but they’ve got thousands of pages of documents and enough legal weaselry to stall your company’s progress and earnings for years. It’s takeover attempt number three. Your father said, and I quote, ‘I’m not leaving this office until Will meets me face to face like a man instead of hiding behind his two-bit lawyer like a frightened child.’ Frankly, I take offense at the two-bit jab.”

Justin finishes his pronouncement and waits for my response.

I do the only thing I can. I laugh, and when I see the shocked expression on Justin’s face I laugh even harder.

“It was aliens,” he says. “They abducted you, didn’t they?”

Which makes me laugh even more. Justin stares in shock. And suddenly I realize that in the five years he’s worked with me he’s never seen me laugh. He’s constantly making jokes, but I doubt I ever even cracked a smile.

I’d kept myself locked away and everyone at a distance.