Chương 6
They were years of meetings.
Years of negotiations.
Years of convincing inventors and engineers that Aaron's company was worth believing in.
Aaron had never been good at patience.
He was brilliant at vision.
That was why we worked together.
He saw what could exist.
I saw what needed to happen to make it real.
I printed the files.
The printer in the corner came alive, filling the quiet room with mechanical sounds.
For some reason, that sound made me emotional.
Not because it was dramatic.
Because it was ordinary.
A machine doing a simple job.
A reminder that not everything had to be complicated.
My phone rang again.
This time, I answered.
"Alyssa."
Aaron's voice came immediately.
He sounded tired.
Not angry.
Tired.
That almost made it harder.
"What?"
There was a pause.
"I didn't know."
I closed my eyes.
The sentence I had expected for years finally arrived too late.
"I know."
"No, you don't."
His voice cracked slightly.
"I mean I really didn't know."
I looked at the documents in front of me.
"I gave you the money."
"I know that now."
"No."
I shook my head even though he could not see me.
"You know the amount."
Silence.
"I gave you trust."
Another silence.
"I gave you years."
"Alyssa."
His voice became quieter.
"I never wanted to hurt you."
I looked around the room.
The old notebooks.
The photographs.
The files.
"I believe that."
He seemed surprised.
"But you did."
The silence after that was different.
Not defensive.
Not angry.
Just painful.
"I made mistakes."
"Yes."
"I can fix them."
That sentence almost made me smile.
Not because it was ridiculous.
Because it was Aaron.
He always believed problems were things that could be solved with enough effort.
A failing company.
A bad quarter.
An angry investor.
A broken marriage.
Everything became a challenge.
Everything except the possibility that some things could not be repaired the same way they were damaged.
"You can't fix everything," I said.
"I can try."
"You should have tried before I left."
He did not answer.
Because there was nothing to say.
The truth was uncomfortable because it did not require an argument.
It only required acceptance.
"Where are you?" he asked.
I looked around my office.
"Somewhere I should have been years ago."
"Alyssa."
I waited.
"I need you to come back."
The words were quiet.
Almost vulnerable.
A part of me wanted to believe them.
That was the dangerous part.
Love did not disappear simply because someone disappointed you.
It stayed.
It waited.
It made leaving complicated.
"I can't."
"Why?"
I looked at the photograph on the desk.
At the two people who believed they were building something together.
"Because if I come back now, I don't know if you'll miss me."
I swallowed.
"Or if you'll just miss what I did for you."
Aaron said nothing.
That was the answer.
The call ended a few seconds later.
I sat there for a long time.
Then I opened the first patent file.
Not because I wanted revenge.
Because I needed to remember something.
Before I was Aaron Prescott's wife.
Before I was the woman standing behind his success.
I was Alyssa Bennett.
And I had built things too.
The next morning, I arrived at Bennett Holdings before sunrise.
I had not been there in almost five years.
Not because I was unwelcome.
Because I had convinced myself that my place was somewhere else.
The building was smaller than Prescott Group's headquarters, older too.
The marble floors had scratches.
The reception desk had a tiny crack near the corner.
The furniture was not designed to impress investors walking through the door.
It was designed to last.
My father had always preferred things that worked over things that looked expensive.
When I walked inside, the receptionist looked up and froze.
"Alyssa?"
I smiled.
"Hi, Nora."
She stood quickly.
"I didn't know you were coming."
"I know."
That was the truth.
Almost nobody knew anything about my life anymore.
I had become very good at disappearing.
Nora looked at the folder in my hand.
Then she looked at my face.
"You look different."
I almost asked what she meant.
Older?
Tired?
Free?
Instead, I simply said, "I probably am."
She smiled sadly.
"Your father would be happy to see you here."
The mention of him caught me off guard.
I looked toward the hallway leading to his old office.
The office had been empty since he passed away three years earlier.
I had avoided it because every corner reminded me of unfinished conversations.
"He would probably tell me I waited too long," I said.
Nora laughed softly.
"Yes."
She paused.
"Then he would make you coffee and pretend he wasn't proud."
That sounded exactly like him.
I walked into the office.
Nothing had changed.
The same wooden desk.
The same bookshelf.
The same old clock that was always five minutes slow because he refused to fix it.
He used to say a clock being wrong by a few minutes was harmless because everyone was already late anyway.
I sat down in his chair.
For a moment, I did not think about Aaron.
I did not think about the company.
I did not think about what came next.
I simply sat there.
A daughter in her father's office.
A person trying to remember who she was before she became someone else's support system.
Then my assistant from the trust office arrived with additional documents.
Her name was Rebecca.
She was younger than me by almost a decade and had inherited my father's habit of asking direct questions.
"You look exhausted," she said.
"Good morning to you too."
She placed a coffee on the desk.
"I mean it as concern."
"I know."
She sat across from me.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
I looked at the documents.
The investment records.
The patent agreements.
May you like
The shareholder communications.
The things I had avoided examining because looking too closely meant admitting how much had changed.
