CHAPTER 9
She's Not What He Expected
Helen
On Thursday afternoon, Helen found Josh in the courtyard garden.
She'd been looking for him, though she wouldn't admit it. But her feet had carried her past the restaurant, past the library, past the ballroom, and now here she was, standing at the entrance to the garden, watching him sit on the bench by the fountain.
His posture was different today. Less controlled. More tired. Like he was carrying something heavy.
She sat down next to him.
The fountain murmured beside them, water splashing over stone that had been smoothed by decades of flow.
"You've been here four days," she said.
"Yes."
"And you still haven't told me what you do."
Josh didn't answer immediately. He looked at the fountain, at the water, anywhere but at her.
Then he said, "I buy companies."
Helen's heart stopped.
Not literally — she could still feel it beating, too fast now. But the world seemed to pause around her.
"What kind of companies?"
"Struggling ones."
"Struggling how?"
"Financially. Operationally. Ones that are dying slow deaths and need someone to pull the plug."
Helen turned to face him fully.
"You're a corporate raider."
Josh didn't deny it. "I prefer 'acquisitions specialist.'"
"Same thing."
He nodded. "Same thing."
A long silence. The fountain murmured. A cloud passed over the sun.
She should have stood up. Walked away. Called security.
Instead, she said, "Are you here to buy my hotel?"
Josh looked at her. His expression was unreadable.
"I'm here to think," he said carefully. "About what I want."
"And what do you want?"
He held her gaze.
"I don't know anymore."
The words landed like stones in still water. This wasn't the answer she'd expected. Not denial, not deflection.
It was honest.
"You should go," she said quietly.
"I know."
"But you're not going to."
"I don't think I can."
Josh reached out — slowly, carefully — and took her hand. His fingers were warm. Calloused in a way she hadn't expected.
"Because I've spent twenty years destroying things," he said quietly. "And for the first time, I want to build something instead."
Helen's throat tightened.
"With me?"
"With you. If you'll let me."
She should have pulled her hand away. She should have stood up and walked out. She should have protected herself, protected her company.
Instead, she sat there, holding hands with a man who had just admitted he was here to destroy her company, and felt something she hadn't felt in five years.
Hope.
"You have a lot to explain," she said finally.
"I know."
"And I don't trust you."
"I know that too."
"But I'm willing to listen."
Josh's fingers tightened around hers.
"Thank you," he said.
Helen didn't respond. She was sitting in a garden with a man who had lied to her, who had come here to take everything she'd built.
And she wasn't running.
She was holding his hand. She was listening. She was hoping.
And that was the most terrifying thing of all.