Chapter 28 Gregory
Gregory
Manhattan hits me like a slap of cold reality after nearly two weeks in the mountains. My penthouse feels sterile. Empty. Everything is exactly where I left it, but I’m not the same man who walked out that door.
My lawyer briefs me within an hour of landing. The Brazilian plaintiffs have enough evidence to bury me. The media is circling like vultures. The board has the votes. I’m done.
“They’re meeting January sixth,” he says, spreading documents across my dining table. “They’ll ask for your resignation.”
“Good.”
He blinks. “Sir?”
“I’m stepping down. I’ll present my own proposal.” I push the papers back toward him. “Draft this.”
When he hears what I have to say, his pen freezes mid-note. “Mr. Falk, that’s corporate suicide.”
I speak between gritted teeth. “No. That’s actually doing the right fucking thing for once.”
He doesn’t understand.
None of them will.
But she does.
And that’s all that matters.
It’s New Year’s Eve. I wanted to spend it with her, fly to Boulder or have her come to Manhattan, but she had lab commitments and I had back-to-back meetings with the legal team. So we celebrate remotely instead.
Midnight Mountain Time, I’m alone in my penthouse with champagne while she’s in her tiny apartment with cheap wine, and we count down together over video. She kisses her screen. I kiss mine. It’s ridiculous and perfect and I’ve never felt less alone on New Year’s Eve.
I video call Sorrel twice daily thereafter, and those calls are the highlight of my day.
She shows me her lab results, tiny petri dishes with mycorrhizal networks spreading like neural pathways. I show her my proposal documents. She makes corrections in the margins, questions my timeline, pushes me to commit more resources.
“This section is too vague,” she says, tapping her screen. “If you’re serious about restoration, you need measurable outcomes. Soil quality benchmarks. Biodiversity indices. Not just throwing money at the problem.”
Fuck, I love watching her think.
Her roommates think she’s lost her mind. My lawyers think I’m committing professional suicide.
Neither of us cares.
“What happened to your dissertation data?” I ask one time. “All that stuff you lost in the mountains?”
She sighs. “I had preliminary results backed up on the university server. Stuff I uploaded before the trip. It’s not everything, but my advisor thinks I can combine it with some new spring data collection and still defend on schedule. It’ll be tight.”
“I can fund an extension if you need more time.”
Her voice softens. “That’s generous. But I don’t need it. I’m going to make this work.”
“Ever the stubborn one,” I comment.
“Resourceful,” she corrects. She smiles on the video call and it fucking wrecks me.
The days blur together. Meetings with lawyers. Calls with environmental consultants. Video chats with Sorrel where she sometimes falls asleep mid-conversation and I just watch her breathe for a few minutes before hanging up.
January sixth arrives like an execution date.
I enter the boardroom with my phone in my pocket. Sorrel’s on the line... she insisted on listening in for moral support.
The board members are already seated, looking smug and ready to tear me apart.
I don’t give them the chance. “I’m stepping down as CEO effective immediately.”
A few members look at each other, clearly surprised. My lawyer would have given them advance warning. I guess some of them didn’t actually believe it.
I hand out the proposal documents and continue.
“I’m committing two billion dollars of my own money to the Brazilian cleanup and remediation.
There will also be independent environmental oversight for all Falk Industries operations going forward.
I’m staying on the board as a non-executive member.
And I’m funding a five-year environmental restoration research initiative focused on healing the damage extraction industries cause. ”
The chairman finds his voice first. “Gregory, this is unexpected.”
“Is it? You were going to force me out anyway. I’m just doing it on my terms.”
The meeting dissolves into logistics. Who takes over as CEO. Timeline for the transition. Legal frameworks for the cleanup fund.
When we finally adjourn, board member Derek Haliburton corners me in the hallway. My former protégé. The one who leaked those documents and sold me out to a competitor for cash.
“You’re letting me stay on the board?” he asks, sounding confused more than anything else.
I shrug. “I don’t give a shit about what happens to you anymore.”
I start to walk past him but then he speaks again.
“You’re throwing away everything you built, you know that right?” he presses.
I turn to look at him and immediately see the ambition in him that used to rule my younger self. The insatiable hunger that consumed everything.
“No,” I say quietly. “I’m finally building something that matters.”
He curls his lips in disgust. “This is about that girl, isn’t it? The one you were trapped with?”
“Her name is Sorrel. And yes, she showed me what I’d become.
And what I could be instead.” I step closer.
“You sold me out to a competitor. For money and power and all the things I taught you to value above everything else. So congratulations, Derek. You learned from the best. You became exactly who I was.”
I walk away before he can respond.
Outside the building, I pull out my phone. Sorrel’s face appears. Tears are streaming down her cheeks.
“You heard?” I ask.
“I heard. Gregory, I’m so proud of you.”
Something tight in my chest loosens. “I couldn’t have done it without you. You showed me what healing looks like.”
She laughs through the tears. “Mycorrhizal networks, remember? We’re stronger connected.”
I can’t help but smile. “Yes. Mycorrhizal networks.”
She pauses. “That two billion dollars. From your own money... not the company’s.”
I’d left that small detail out when I sent the proposal her way.
But she knows, now.
“It’s my mess to clean up. Literally.”
“Gregory.” Her voice breaks. “Do you have any idea what you’re sacrificing?”
“I know the number in my bank account is going to look a whole lot smaller. I also know that Brazilians have been drinking poisoned water because of decisions I made. So yeah. I know exactly what I’m doing.”
She’s crying again, and I can hear her trying to muffle it, though it’s pretty hard to mask tears on a video call. “You’re a good man.”
“I’m not. But I’m trying to be.” My throat tightens. “When can I see you? In person.”
She wipes away the tears, checks her calendar. “I have lab work through next week, but... come anyway? I’ll make you coffee.”
I grin. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”
The next morning, Marcel drops me off at the University of Colorado Boulder campus. I’m carrying two coffees from her favorite shop she told me about during one of our chats. I called ahead, got her usual.
I enter her building. I roam the halls, looking for the room number Marcel told me about.
There.
I spot her through the lab window, bent over a microscope, and my heart beats faster.
She looks up. Freezes. Then she’s running outside into the hall and launching herself into my arms.
Her colleagues stare through the windows.
I don’t give a fuck.
I hold her tight.
“You’re really here,” she breathes against my neck.
“Told you I would be,” I reply.
Her advisor appears in the doorway. Dr. Patricia Chang, judging from the dead-on description Sorrel gave me. A petite Asian woman, early fifties, steel-gray hair cut in a sharp bob. She’s wearing a lab coat over jeans.
Dr. Change eyes me with the wariness of someone who knows exactly who Gregory Falk is and what his company has done.
Sorrel pulls back but keeps one hand in mine. “Dr. Chang, this is my boyfriend. Gregory, this is my advisor.”
Boyfriend.
Something fierce and possessive surges through me at the word.
“Mr. Falk.” Dr. Chang’s handshake is firm. “Sorrel mentioned you’d be funding a research initiative.”
I nod. “That’s the plan. If she’ll review my proposal and make sure I’m not missing anything.”
Dr. Chang’s expression softens slightly. “She talks about you constantly. And she showed me your cleanup proposal. That’s significant change.”
“She taught me that damaged networks can heal,” I agree. “You just have to be willing to do the work.”
Dr. Chang studies me for a long moment. Then she nods. “And so they can. We’ll hold you to that.”
That evening, Sorrel’s roommates conveniently disappear. We spread the research initiative documents across her tiny dining room table. She reads carefully, marking corrections with a red pen.
I watch her work. The way she chews her bottom lip when concentrating. The way she tucks hair behind her ear. The way her whole face lights up when she finds something interesting.
“What?” she asks, catching me staring.
The words are right there. Have been since the chalet. Since the day with the cougar. Since that desperate reconciliation before the helicopter came.
I’ve thought them a thousand times.
But was always too afraid to say out loud.
Fuck being afraid.
“I love you,” I say. “I’m in love with you. I think I have been since you refused to let me face danger alone. I didn’t say it at the chalet. Thought it was too fast, that it would push you away. But Sorrel, I love you.”
The shock on her face throws me, and for one terrifying moment I think I’ve fucked this up completely.
Then her eyes fill with tears and she’s crossing to me and framing my face with her hands. The same way I framed hers outside the helicopter.
“I love you, too,” she whispers. “God, Gregory, I’ve loved you since that night by the fire when you took care of me, even if I didn’t know it then. I love you, Gregory Falk. More than my research. And that’s saying something.”
I pull her into my lap. Kiss her like she’s the only thing anchoring me to earth. Which she is.
When we break apart, I press my forehead to hers. “You are my redemption. My salvation. My everything.”
“And you are mine.” She smiles tenderly. “I love you, my love.”
“Say it again,” I murmur.
She kisses me on the lips. “I love you, Gregory Falk.”
I exhale shakily. “I love you, too, Sorrel Silva. And I’m going to keep saying it until you’re sick of hearing it.”
She laughs. “I’ll never be sick of hearing it.”
I cup her face in both hands and my voice cracks. “You showed up desperate on my doorstep, and even after you knew who I was, you never asked me for anything. You fought me on everything. You called me out. You made me want to be better.” I swallow hard before continuing. “And that’s when I knew.”
She shakes her head ever so slightly. “Knew?”
I pull her closer. “I’ve been surrounded by people who only care about what I can do for them for so long I thought it was normal.
I’d spent my whole life building an empire, and it couldn’t buy the one thing that mattered.
You. Your respect, your forgiveness, your love.
I had to earn those. And I did. And that’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I’m not exaggerating. Learning that I’m enough without it all.
That you love me, not what I can provide, not what I can do for you. ”
She smiles through tears and touches my face. “Oh god, Gregory, I do. I love you exactly as you are.”
We stay like that for a long time, wrapped around each other in her tiny apartment. The research initiative documents lie forgotten on the table.
They can wait.
Right now is for this.
For us.
For finally being brave enough to say I love you.
And that’s enough.