CHAPTER 21
Small Steps Forward
Helen
They started slow.
Not dating, exactly. Not yet. But something new and fragile and terrifying.
Josh came to the hotel almost every day. Not as a guest — he'd checked out of the Ambassador Suite weeks ago. He came as... she didn't know what. A friend? Something more? She wasn't ready to name it yet.
They walked in the garden. Sat by the fountain. Talked about nothing and everything.
He told her about his mother — the way she used to read to him at night. The way she smelled like vanilla and roses. The way she held his hand on her deathbed and told him he didn't have to be empty like his father.
He told her about boarding school — the loneliness, the cold hallways.
She told him about her father — the way he hummed off-key in the ballroom, the way he believed in her even when she didn't believe in herself.
She told him about the early days after her father's death — the board members who'd tried to push her out, the investors who'd circled like sharks, the nights she'd spent crying in the shower.
They argued about books and movies and whether breakfast should be served until 11 AM or 10:30. (She won.)
He made her laugh. Really laugh. She made him smile. Really smile.
It wasn't easy. There were bad days. Days when Helen remembered what he'd tried to do and got so angry she couldn't look at him. Days when she yelled and threw things and told him to get out and never come back.
On those days, he left. But he always came back. The next morning, there would be flowers on her desk. Or coffee waiting for her. Or a text message: "I'm still here. Whenever you're ready."
He was learning to stay. And she was learning to let him.