Chapter 23
Gregory
The silence after the generator dies is different from every other silence we’ve had this week.
Colder.
Heavier.
Like someone dropped a chunk of cesium ore between us.
Sorrel stands by the windows, staring out at the sunny sky. She’s taken off her coat so I can see my hoodie on her. Usually she has the sleeves rolled up, but the fabric droops over her fingers at the moment, hiding those hands whose knuckles I’ve kissed.
That hoodie... instead of making her look adorable and mine, it just reminds me that tomorrow she’ll give it back.
Tomorrow.
Less than twenty-four hours.
I should be relieved.
Celebrating, even.
Instead, I feel like I’m watching a vein of precious minerals collapse in on itself.
All that potential, all that value, just buried under tons of rock and completely fucking unreachable.
“You okay?” I ask.
She doesn’t turn around. “Yeah. Fine.”
That’s a lie. I’ve built a mining empire by reading people, by knowing when someone’s holding back.
And Sorrel Silva is definitely holding back.
“I thought you’d be happy,” I try again. “We’re being rescued tomorrow. That’s good news.”
“I know.” Her reflection in the glass looks pale. Distant. “I’m really glad.”
Another lie.
What the fuck is going on?
Since the call with Marcel she’s been acting strange. I thought she’d be thrilled we’re getting out of here. That her parents and roommates would know she’s safe.
But instead she’s standing there looking like I just told her the rescue’s been canceled.
Maybe it’s because she doesn’t actually want to be rescued.
Maybe it’s because she wants to stay here with me forever.
Or maybe I’m just fucking delusional.
I cross the room, stopping a few feet behind her. “Sorrel. Talk to me.”
She finally turns. Her eyes are red-rimmed. Has she been crying?
“Did you really mean what you said in the bathroom the other night?” she asks quietly. “About not letting me go without a fight?”
The question hits me like a cave-in. It’s unexpected.
Dangerous.
“Yeah.” I stare into her eyes. I meant it at the time. And might even mean it now.
But the doubts are still there. The logistics are fucking impossible. Different cities. Different tax brackets. Different worlds. And I can see the same doubts reflected in her brown eyes.
In all honesty, I just want to spend our last day together without thinking about any of that.
At least not yet.
The silence stretches between us.
Finally she steps back. “Maybe I don’t want you to fight for me.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“I have to finish my dissertation, you know that, right? And you have your corporate crisis to handle. Our lives are in different cities, different tax brackets. Different worlds.”
She’s already writing us off. Already seeing the impossibility instead of the solution. Already treating this like a failed extraction when we haven’t even attempted the drilling yet.
“So we’re just what?” My voice comes out harder than I intend. “A nice survival fuck that we forget about once we’re back in civilization?”
“Don’t.” Her voice cracks. “Don’t make it sound like that.”
“Then tell me what it sounds like, Sorrel.” I’m pushing now, but I can’t stop myself. “Because from where I’m standing, it sounds like you’re giving up before we even try.”
“I’m not giving up.” She wipes a sudden tear off her cheek. “I’m being realistic. You live in Manhattan. I live in Boulder. You’re a billionaire. I’m broke. How exactly does this work?”
She’s not wrong.
We have two separate lives.
Live in two separate cities.
It’s the kind of assessment I’d make in a boardroom when evaluating a merger.
But this isn’t a fucking merger.
This is her.
This is us.
And I didn’t survive almost a week trapped in this chalet, didn’t fall for a woman who challenges everything I thought I knew about myself, just to lose her because the logistics are complicated.
“Then we find a way,” I say quietly. “Boulder to Manhattan is a three hour flight. I can work from anywhere with an internet connection. You need lab access and field sites, fine. I’ll figure it out.”
“Gregory...” She’s looking at me like it’s hopeless. Like I’m proposing we extract minerals using nothing but a fucking spoon.
“I didn’t survive this week just to lose you.” I finally speak my mind. The words come out almost angry, because I’m terrified she doesn’t feel the same. That maybe for her this really was just proximity and adrenaline and nothing more.
She nods slowly. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I need more than that. Need her to fight back. Need her to tell me she wants this too, that she’s willing to try, that I’m not alone in this fucking mess of feelings.
She finally says, “You’re not listening. We can’t do this. Any of this. We got caught up in the moment. In proximity and danger and... and... adrenaline!”
My face hardens. I feel the defensive walls slamming up, the same ones that protected me after Caroline left, after Derek betrayed me, after every goddamn person I’ve trusted has proven that trust is just another commodity to be exploited.
“Is that what you think this is?” My voice goes cold. “Adrenaline?”
She bursts into tears. “I don’t know!” She blubbers. “How can we know? We’re living in a snow globe, not the real world. In the real world, you’re a billionaire CEO who thinks your life’s work is destroying the planet.”
And there it is.
The impossible gulf between us.
I should back down.
Because I know she’s right.
I’ve been telling myself we could make this work.
That we could find a way.
But the truth is, I’ve been lying to myself.
And to her.
I’m not a good person.
Not like her.
At a fundamental level, we’re incompatible.
It’s time to stop leading her on.
Time to stop leading myself on.
But a part of me still wants to fight.
So I turn and pace away from her, until I’m standing on the windows at the opposite side of the room. Without looking at her, I speak.
“So what, the second we’re back in civilization this just ends?” My voice is ice now. “We go our separate ways and pretend this never happened?”
I risk a glance at her, and watch as she wraps her arms around herself. I hate that she looks so small in that moment.
So vulnerable.
“I’m just trying to be realistic,” she says.
Realistic.
My laugh is bitter. “Right. Well, it was a nice fantasy while it lasted.” I gesture toward the window. “Don’t worry. By this time tomorrow, you’ll be back in Boulder and I’ll be back in Manhattan. We can live our own lives, and forget we ever met.”
She doesn’t respond.
Just stands there crying silently while I stare out at the forest and try not to feel like my heart is breaking in fucking half.
The silence stretches.
Finally, she wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and moves toward the kitchen. Her voice is quiet. “We should eat something. We only had oatmeal this morning, and after the roof...”
She doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t need to. We both know we’re running on empty... physically drained from hauling firewood, sex, the rooftop climb, the adrenaline crash from the cougar, and now this emotional devastation...
I recognize the move for what it is. Distraction. Something to do.
“I’m not going back outside to get food,” I say flatly. “Not for the rest of today. Not worth the risk.”
She nods without looking at me. “I wasn’t going to suggest it.” A pause. “I’ll just make something from the pantry.”
“Fine by me.”
And then she’s gone, leaving me alone with my dark thoughts.
For lunch she cooks whatever dried food she finds in the pantry. Noodles and some canned chickpeas. We add protein using one of my tubs from the gym stash.
Then eat in silence.
The food tastes like cardboard. Or maybe that’s just because I can’t taste anything past the bitterness coating my tongue.
After lunch I retreat to the gym. Hide myself in the unheated basement and force myself to work out. Deadlifts until my lower back screams. Bench press until my chest burns. Anything to stop thinking about how badly I’ve fucked this up.
How I let myself fall for someone who was always going to leave.
Hours pass.
My body starts to ache all over. In addition to sore muscles, I also get that shaky worked-out-and-didn’t-eat-enough feeling. But I don’t stop.
I keep pushing.
The physical exhaustion helps, but it’s not enough.
When I finally smell pasta cooking upstairs, I drag myself back to the kitchen. It’s dark outside.
She’s made dinner. For the pasta sauce, she’s used a can of tomatoes and actual spices from the pantry.
It smells incredible, but I’m not really hungry.
Still, I force myself to eat another scoop of protein powder mixed with water because macros, then I dig into the pasta.
We barely exchange words.
She asks if I want more.
I say no thanks.
She clears the dishes.
I go straight back to the frigid gym downstairs.
Pound out more sets until I’m completely exhausted. Until my muscles are shaking and my heart is racing and I can’t think about anything except the burn.
Perfect.
When I finally return to the great room, she’s already asleep on the sectional. Curled up in a ball with my hoodie pulled tight around her.
I stand there watching her breathe for a long moment.
Then I grab a blanket and head to the opposite side of the sectional.
We spend the night in awful silence. Both miserable. Both too proud and too scared to bridge the gap.
But even as I lie there staring at the ceiling, my mind won’t shut off.
Because this is what I do.
What I’ve always done.
When faced with an impossible mining problem, I don’t give up.
I strategize.
I find solutions.
I turn obstacles into opportunities.
The board wants me out?
Fuck them. I still own forty percent of the company.
The Brazil lawsuit?
That’s a settlement negotiation waiting to happen.
The media crucifixion?
Public opinion is just another market to manipulate.
I’ve built an empire by solving problems everyone else said were unsolvable.
So why the fuck am I lying here accepting that Sorrel and I are impossible?
Why?
I told her I’d fight.
I told myself I’d fucking fight.
My brain runs numbers.
Drafts proposals.
Thinks of ways to turn my resources toward something that actually matters.
Not quarterly profits or extraction efficiency or stock price.
Her.
Her values.
Building something together.
Something that could make a real fucking difference.
An idea begins to coalesce in my mind.
Something that’s been there, hidden just out of view, ever since she explained her dissertation research.
I can’t help but grin.
Maybe there’s a way to build a bridge across the gulf that separates us after all.
I think I might have found a way.
I just need to figure out how to present it without sounding like I’m trying to buy her.
Across the room, Sorrel shifts in her sleep. Makes a small sound that might be my name.
I close my eyes and let myself imagine a future where this works.
Tomorrow is the most important day of my life.
Because tomorrow is the day I have to convince her that we’re not impossible.